I am getting ready to build a 2.5 car detached garage and convert the existing one car garage to a media room. The existing driveway is asphalt and is over 30 years old and is in bad shape and I will need the new driveway to go to the new garage. What si a general sq ft prive for asphalt vs concrete? I don’t want to waste a contractors time to get bids if i know I can’t afford the concrete. I live near Baltimore, Md.
Thanks
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Figure your square footage, how thick the slab will be, how much excavating, filling, and compacting there will be, re-rod or re-mesh, and you should expect to pay $5 - $8 per square foot...at least that would be the rough range in SE MN. Out east you might have to pay more.
So to figure if you can afford it or not...get the tape out and figure your square footage and worst case multiply by $10.
I just had my asphalt driveway done in Randallstown, MD for about 1.00 SF
Hi Kevin - could you elaborate a little more on exactly what was done. That 1.00/square foot almost makes me want to call the local motel to see if they have any vacancies for Randallstown workers. I'm in Silver Spring, MD.
Eric S.
Thanks for the information from everyone. Looks like the cost is about 10x more for concrete. I think for the diffrence in price, I will go ahead and have asphalt installed and put the extra money elsewhere in the house.
Thanks again,
Forrest
I don't believe the 10 to 1 ratio. Do more people agree with that ratio? I don't know, but it sure seems like my parents got a hack asphalt job and it cost them more than $1.00/foot.
In ME last year asphalt ranged from approximately $1.10/sf to $1.50/sf last year. Those numbers did not include excavation, base etc.
In Indiana I usually budget $100/square yard for the whole shebang - finish grading, aggs, rebar, concrete, finish.
remodeler
In calculating your asphalt cost, if you wear your shoes in the house, don't forget to factor in increased frequency of carpet and vinyl replacement.
Your shoes pick up hydro carbons (or something) from the asphalt and track 'em in the home and discolor stuff.
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my driveway 16 x 80, doing ALL the work myself is going to run about $1400. If I add a finisher labor to that it will be about $2000, I can get asphalt for about $700 cheap to $1000. Now aphalt will need to be replace about every 3 to 5 years, If a car leaks oil every year. Concrete will be there thirty years from now. If I abuse the concrete, it will still be there thiry years. asphalt heats and cools during the day so it expands. asphalt needs traffic to compact daily because of expansion. concrete is just ......there. Concrete will be more but it will be maintance free.
That's the big secret here, labor. While I'm not particularly adept at finishing flatwork, I often can't see paying local rates, always based on sq ft.
Recently I gave an estimate to a driveway customer who had gotten a $15k asphalt price several years ago. She called me to come over with my road grader to repair her poorly sited driveway that I improved, without fixing, 5 yrs ago. The asphalt is largely gone and they have had considerable gravel spread on top. I didn't recommend concrete for the steeper stretchess but gave her a price for 1/2 the driveway that was 1/4 of the asphalt price.
I know what the going sq ft rate is, don't understand it, and am not favorably impressed. What I looked at was how many man hours were involved and the material cost. Now this same woman recently had a garage converted into an apartment and was duly impressed with the cost (high). She knows my house client and inquired as to cost. When she heard how low it was, I had to grab her elbow to steady her.
This is no charity job. I'll make my usual rate. And the total cost will be a fraction of the going rate. Prep is minimal, finish not particularly important, with a slight slope to one side. When I bought some vibratory screeds at auction I wasn't thinking of this type of job, just making my own slabs easier. If this was an interior slab I wouldn't have offered, but it's only 2 loads of concrete and placement is directly from the chute. Sq ft estimating often doesn't make sense.
Result is I got a decent job, customer delighted with the price, and more importantly, credibility for what I really want to promote, my type of housing. Referrals, the only way I ever get jobs.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Now remember its possible, what I did i found a couple guy that work concrete during the week , offer some side money $100 a day per person, they jump on it, get all my friend over, and I can pour 25 yard of concrete for $1500. I not good at concrete but i,m saving $2500
the big secret here, labor
That's the kicker here in central Texas. Driveway will need two hands for two days at $10 per hour (first day, cut ans start forms; second day, finish forms & set bar). Then around $200-300 in materials (depending upon bar prices). Concrete is about $50 per yard just about every where. Placing and finishing the concrete is two hands for another 8 hours. 12 x 18 x 6" driveway is 8 yards. $400 + $320 + $160 = $880. But, that has no overhead time for the concrete sub, so the project will be $1100-$1200, like as not.
That's not bad, though. Going rate (rule of thumb) for structural concrete (slabs, basement walls, etc.) is about $1200 per yard.
Now, another option to consider is macadam. You will likely have to call most of hte paving contractors to find one who installs macadam. The end result is a lot nicer, IMHO. You can control the appearance with the choice of top aggregate, and it seems to wear better than asphalt. A good job will require as much prep work as a good asphalt job, but the look will be nicer. The only detail that needs more attention is edging.
when ipoured my garage slab, I form it myself, compacted, everything myself. Got it 100% ready by myself. Then one afternoon I got two hand to help me . paid them $100 each poured 18 yards. hour half later the hands was loading up to go home, Good pay cheap on me. My driveway I,m doing right now. 16x80 15 yards then some. I am pouring 2 1/2 yards per weekend thats 16 x10 doing it completely by myself cost aint bad due to it not all at once. Yes it will take eight weeks but I will have a concrete drive thats good for 30 years compare to asphalt every five years.
What I.m saying if you want concrete, you can do it cheaper than asphalt if you start thinking. It just a driveway not the floor slab of the house
2 1/2 yards per weekend? What are you using for a mixer?
2 1/2 yard is the minimum I can order without a delievery fee so 2 1/2 yard run $150 ( $60 a yard) I learned about the mixer the hard way, never again. I,m sorry I forgot its also stamped concrete so I wanted to do small section at a time.
Edited 8/15/2003 9:38:19 PM ET by BROWNBAGG
2 1/2 yards without a delievery fee. Nice!
$1200 / yard ??????? WOW! IS that right? Can't be, can it? Did you mean $120?
IS that right?
Yep. $1200 per yard from 1 to about 5 yards of installed concrete. Now, that's everything, formwork, rebar assembly & placement, pouring and finishing. It's a rule-of-thumb number, but not bad for planning. Concrete alone is about $50 per yard until you order 50 or more yards. A concrete contractor can get as low as $40-44 pre yard, but that's also ordering beau coups yards per month, too.
So, it's the labor. Formwork carpenters are $10-12 per hour, as are good rebar men. Really good finishers can be as high as $15+ per hour. Finding reliable help that will show up is tough for labor-intensive work.
At 1200/yard even a 70' x 30' house with a crawlspace (3' x 6" walls and 8"x 18" footings) would run 18 or 20 yards and equal $22,000. Really???
$1200 less 50 for concrete = $1150. At even $20/hour you get 57.5 hrs/yard. ?????Ok, 50 hrs/yard if you factor something for profit. ?????
There are quite a number of people around here who are very satisfied with spreading and compacting used asphalt. When the RoadTec grinds up the road surfaces and fills up the dump trucks the contractors have to find a place to dump, either for a fee paid to the land fill or a fee received for transport to a customer. There is a commercial use for this stuff but homeowners have found it to be a distinct saving over traditional concrete of virgin asphalt. One guy who had it done used his multi-ton surface roller to compact the stuff and it came out just as good as the adjacent road. Next time you see a RoadTec crew ask them what they would charge to dump a load or two on your lot.
Yeah, a three foot wall, and all the formwork needed, that'd be about right. That's why so many Texas houses are slab-on-grade. Same house, 70 x 30' footprint, is about 50 yards for 6" slab and a skinny, backhoe-dug foundation beam. Add it four hands & a foreman for 3.5 days, call it $14-1500, $2500 in concrete, another $2000 in formboards, rebar & equipment. That's $6000 contractor cost, use a 2.5x ruke of thumb, that's $15,000, or about $300 per cubic yard (except in Austin).
Renting formwork off Sheppler's, and the additional labor and materials is what bumps the formed concrete higher.
I asked around th concrete guys I know. They all figure on twice normal rates for existing driveways. Either the backhoe can't get all the way to the garage, or there's a tree and roots in the way, or "might as well as" add in a joint of pvc for future under driveway "changes."
>$1200 per yard from 1 to about 5 yards of installed concrete.
Oh my God, that sounds nuts! I'm glad my finishers didn't read that before doing my driveway!!!!!! 46 yards. I'm almost fainting at the math! <G> How does that rate scale up to my size job? I probably paid $200/yd. And these guys have been doing it for years, so they aren't fly-by-nighters.
I get union labor to form, steel, and pour concrete between $275 and $450/CY, depending on whether it's slabs, walls, footings, etc. I've paid as much as $600/CY for heavily reinforced shear walls in a parking garage, and up to $700/CY for a rigid concrete frame in a 30-story building.
CapnMac- where are you located? I'm on the first plane there if you're willing to pay $1200/CY for concrete! I'll pour ten yards a week and retire in a year!!! LOL
Bob
5 years ago when we did our driveway we had a number of people tell us the same thing. Since my asphalt drive cost 4k and concrete would have been about 25k we went with the asphalt. We have white berber in the house and have experienced no tracking at all. We have the carpets cleaned yearly but no other specific maintenance so I don't really buy the tracking theory. DanT
DanT
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In our area (university town in SW Virginia), there are several homes with large concrete grass paver blocks for residential parking lot and driveways.
After looking into asphalt and concrete as well as concrete and brick pavers, we will go with the concrete grass pavers sometime this year for our slightly sloped driveway.
I like the idea of them being removeable/reuseable in the future for whatever reason that may come up.
Sub base prep would be similar to concrete but without the need for rebar. Any future repairs or adjustments would be a simple matter of lifting up the blocks in the affected area.
Even after considering the snow scraping issue, which would not be as easy as asphalt or concrete, I am sold on this for the time being and this will be a DIY affair, probably with a rented Bobcat and a plate compactor.
The blocks are rather large and each weigh about 40-lbs, but I may be off on that figure. Exact numbers escapes me at the moment.
As a final note, many municipalities have restrictions on the percentage of building and paved areas on a lot.
The grass pavers, which isn't a solid surface pavement, may be exempt from the calculations.
you could do like I did, when they ripped up a road in mpls. I bribbed the truck drivers with two cases of beer to drop the bricks off in my driveway. 22 truck loads later I couldn't see one end from the other.. It took all summer but for my labor I have a wonderfull driveway. 15, 310 bricks later (when you lay each one yourself you count them ) and since it lasted almost 100 years on busy roads it's life in my driveway should be at least 300-400 years..