Brick Added to Driveway

Brick Added to Driveway is about this Architectural company installing bricks onto the surface of a portion of an existing driveway.

PURPOSE:
1. Enhanced decorative architectural interest at the main exterior driveway entranceway area of the existing home.
2. Permanent driveway surface protection in this area. Note: asphaltic driveways require repeated maintenance over their lifetime.
3. Additional masonry details added to certain features on the front elevation to enhance appearance.

Note: do not attempt to do work similar to this without having your own licensed Architect and licensed Contractor analyzing the situations and performing the work properly and under controlled ideal circumstances.

ADHERING BRICK TO DRIVEWAY:
One of the first and most important issues before starting such an effort is:
“Will the bricks adhere to the existing asphaltic concrete paving using mortar?”
Consulting online resources, the answer appeared to be YES. But with certain conditions. Read on.

PRESSURE WASHING:
First, the Architect bought a Westinghouse 2700PSI pressure washer (cost only around and in preparation for the treatment to the entire driveway, the Architect pressure washed the entire driveway, including the area to receive mortar and brick pavers.

PREMIXED BAGGED MORTAR:
For ease of mixing, the Architect bought Type S Sakrete pre-blended (premixed) 60 pound bags of mortar (16 bags were used, which is almost 1,000 pounds of mortar mix before adding water). Only needed to add water.
Accomplished this in a large 4-tire wheelbarrow using a water hose and a mortar mixing hoe by hand. Type S mortar is 1,800 PSI. Most SUVs and mid-size trucks weigh around 6,000 pounds. They transmit this weight to the driving surface on an area perhaps 11″ square per tire. That’s 121 square inches x 4 tires = 484 square inches. 6,000 pounds divided by 484 square inches =12,39 pounds per square inch. In other words there will typically only be about 12 to 13 pounds per square inch pressing onto the bricks and mortar, with a fully cured mortar strength of 1,800 PSI after 28 days. So that should work just fine. Just to make sure, it wouldn’t be wise to allow a 33,000 pound LP gas truck to drive across this. Mainly due to the wrenching force of turning front steering wheels.

After pressure washing, the surface of the asphaltic concrete driveway was examined.

As can be seen, much of the limestone aggregate in the driveway was visible. This is a good thing. Limestone is white to light gray. So it’s all of those hundreds and thousands of white dots on the pavement.
Mortar loves to adhere to clean limestone. So, while new asphalt of any kind would not be a good surface on which to place mortar, this 6-year old pressure-washed surface appeared to be a good candidate for a successful installation. Of course, the driveway was allowed to dry for several days.

ASPHALTIC CONCRETE:
About driveways: most people call a black driveway “asphalt.” Well, that is half-right. Usually driveways are ASPHALTIC CONCRETE. Meaning: they are a mixture of asphalt and limestone aggregate and other components.

LARGE BRICK PAVER MANUFACTURER DETAILS: B
elgard, the manufacturer of some types of integral color concrete pavers has several details on their website illustrating 3/4″ thick mortar adhering brick to either asphaltic or concrete driveways. Note their diagrams say “concrete”, however, the title of the list of details indicates: “HOW TO INSTALL PAVERS OVER ASPHALT OR CONCRETE.” Out of respect for Belgard’s copyright, this is not reproduced here, however, this is the hotlink: https://www.belgardcommercial.com/installing-pavers-over-asphalt-or-concrete/

CURING:
it takes 28 days for mortar to fully cure, according to Sakrete. The Architectural company is waiting the full curing period before driving across it, although after 20 days, the partially cured mortar strength should be around 80%, or around 1,440 PSI. Which is more than 100 times stronger than the force applied to the surface from a conventional SUV or mid-size pickup truck like a Ford Ranger or F150.

The buckets and scrap lumber you see in the first photo at the top of this article illustrates one way to block traffic from running over the freshly installed brick and mortar.

LOWES PRE-COLORED CONCRETE PAVER BRICKS:
Checking with the Lowes website, the integrally colored concrete bricks LOWES indicates that they ARE suitable for installation on a driveway where vehicles will be driving over them. This is due do a YES in the matrix about the properties of the bricks used. Why were this bricks selected? For one: they have an attractive appearance. For another, Lowes indicates they can be driven on, and lastly: they are only 58 cents each, which is remarkably inexpensive compared with other pavers available. And this allowed for the Architect to DIY this project for around $1,160 for the brick, another $70+/- for delivery. And the 16 bags of mortar were less than $8 each x 16=$128+/-. 6 4x4s 12 ‘ long about $150. PVC drainage piping, about $100. 2 mortar trowels each about $20. So a total of around $1,648 which is an excellent value. With the Owner-Architect providing the sweat-equity labor.

SOME BRICK PAVERS APPLIED OVER PT WOOD BOTTOM STEP:
Mortar is not suitable to adhere brick pavers to wood. The bottom step of the existing porch is pressure-treated ground contact wood.

This bottom step horizontal surface was lightly sanded with a rotary sander with 120 grit sandpaper (see above). This was to remove mold, dirt, loose stain and to roughen the surface. This was then wiped clean. Lexel sealant was squirted onto the surface of the cleaned wood, then clean bricks were seat into the sealant. The size of the bricks were carefully examined to insure that no cutting of the bricks would be required and that the set height would be very close to the mortar set bricks sloping down from the bricks on the first step.

MODULARITY OF BRICKS:
Look at the photos above with brick in them. Before the brick were ordered, the Architect examined several bricks aligned with several other bricks in a perpendicular direction. They are perfectly matched and modular: 2 bricks in the short direction exactly match one long brick. This is very important. It means that if planned properly, no bricks will need to be cut or trimmed and the appearance will be much more professional.

ALIGNMENT:
It’s very hard to get a grease pencil, normal pencil or even a chalk snap line to evenly mark an asphaltic concrete driveway with elevation changes/dips. Using trigonometry right angle equations, multiple tape measures can be laid down on the driveway, including the diagonal hypotenuse, and angle the tape measures to intersect at the dimensions shown from the trigonometry equation. This can help establish a precise and perpendicular line from the start of the brick application to the end. Ordinary yellow chalk was used in hand, to lay down a dashed line from the center of the proposed brickwork to the end, by means of drawing directly next to the long center tape.

Then, another tape measure from this centerline to the left and right sides, was dashed onto the driveway with the chalk. In this manner, the entire brick area was planned out, drawn onto the driveway. Brick work started each portion along the centerline.

MATERIAL DELIVERY PLACEMENT:
Material placement for the heavy components like the brick is very important. In this case, the 3 cubes of brick were delivered and placed a couple of feet outside of the side of the main location of the brick to be installed to minimize lifting and walking. See below.

DRAINAGE:
Note the white PVC piping at the low point of the driveway, to accept and conduct shallow driveway water under the new brick (above).
When the rainfall becomes too much for the PVC underdrains to handle it, a modest puddle will form on the right side of the new brickwork, then flood over the top of the brick at the lowest trough line. This works.

3/4″ SERRATED MORTAR TROWEL:

Since the details from Belgard call for 3/4″ thick mortar bed, the easiest way to obtain that is to use a serrated mortar trowel with 3/4″ deep grooves through which one extrudes the damp mortar onto the driveway. Then the bricks are placed into the wet mortar.

START OF BRICK WORK (below):

The PVC drainage pipes were covered with solid mortar about an inch and a half thick, then 3/4″ mortar and bricks.

EDGE TRIM TRANSITION STRIPS:
Owner/Architect purchased (6) 4x4x12 PT (for ground contact) and cut them diagonally through the cross section, making one side 2″ tall and the other 1″ tall. See below:

The idea of this trim strip is to allow vehicle tires to roll up and onto the brick without exerting sideways pressure on the bricks, to avoid dislodging them. And after receiving 2 coats of solid acrylic stain, dark brown, they provide a handsome trimmed edge to the brick sides.

Note: it was tried to run this through a table saw, but it was obvious that a larger, more powerful table saw would have been required, otherwise, the modest table saw’s motor would have burned out. So this was accomplished with a hand skill-saw, which was difficult and inexact. Would have been much better to have a larger, more powerful table saw, which no doubt would have been 12″ and 5HP and would have cost over $3,500. Probably the best way to go, if one can afford that.

These trim strips were screwed down to the pavement using tapcon screws. But before doing that, they were stained with solid acrylic stain, 2 coats applied with a 6″ roller applicator.

COLD WEATHER PROTECTION:
Many online sources said the same thing: if temperatures drop below 40 degrees F within the first 24 hours of installing the mortar, the mortar (along with the brick to which it is now attached) should be covered with a plasticized tarp.

This helps keep the heat of hydration within the mortar and helps prevent freezing due to this changing moisture as the source of heat.

This was left in place for 10 days, just to make sure, as some temperatures dropped below freezing during the month after installation. The 3 pallets of brick were also covered, to prevent rain or other moisture from reaching them when work was not progressing.

FINISHED WORK:
Main horizontal brick on driveway area.