Our driveway had sunk down in front of the garage doors. In some spots, it was a 2″ rise. This was a trip / fall hazard and did not look good. Most of the driveway is still in good shape, even after 27 years. So, I wanted to try a localized fix rather than re-doing the asphalt surface. Most of the depressed area was within 6-12 inches of the garage door. So I decided on doing the repair with brick pavers. The asphalt would be cut, the sunken section pried out and then the new pavers installed over sand to level them.
The first and really the hardest part of the job was cutting the pavement in a straight line. I wanted to avoid renting a large saw. So I used my 6″ wet saw with a well used diamond “turbo” blade for the first pass. This made a nice cut but did not go deep enough. The piece of plywood you see in front of the saw was the cutting “gauge” to set the distance from the cement for the cut.
The next pass was with a 7 1/4″ saw with a similar blade. A “normal” circular saw did not have enough power, but the worm drive saw did. However I split the time between the saws to avoid overheating, cutting with each for about 1/3 of the way before switching.
Next the pavement needed to be broken up and removed. A large pry bar was used to both mark / crack the pieces for the break points and pry it up for removal.
We needed 69 6×11″ pavers and 8 bags of sand for levelling and filling the cracks.
After removing the old asphalt, the sand was poured in and then compacted and leveled. I cut a piece of scrap plywood as a form for the sand. It was cut to allow for a 3/8″ drop from the garage floor and 1/4″ high vs the pavement. With settling this should leave the pavers flush with the pavement and 1/2″ below the garage floor, to avoid water coming in.
Once the pavers were in place, the joint sand was worked in and wetted down. With some final sweeping, this completed the project. Overall, it took the two of us < 4 hours to complete. Teal was the “brick runner” and photographer. We now have a nice transition from the driveway to the garage floor.
