Thursday, May 22, 2008

Eagle Mountain Driveways Falling Apart

KSL-TV broke a story on crumbling driveways in Richmond American Home communities.

I have reason to believe that Richmond American homes aren't the only ones with crumbling driveways.

I've seen crumbling driveways in sub-divisions all over Eagle Mountain.

How is your driveway holding up?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All about the cement.

This problem happens for multiple reasons. It is all about the cement mix and sometimes time of year.

In the early days cement was watered down so it would stay wet to come to EM.

Then during the cement mix shortage of 2 yrs ago, the cement company was making improper cement mix. That is why most failed including Richmond starting 2 yrs ago.

There is also the pouring it in winter. Even though cement is poured year round, they change the mixture slightly. During certain temperatures you should never pour cement even though the industry repeatedly does it anyways. It increases failure since it never sets properly.

Then there is shoddy workmanship of either over and under smoothing it. I just forgot the name.

So that destroys many driveways. But you'll notice the ones that fail the most and where they fail is where salt from tires drive on it. This accelerates the failure rate.

My driveway failed. They poured it on the coldest day in January, they did shoddy smoothing, it never set, but froze. I had winter mixture in my cement. Ever notice that the sidewalks around town aren't failing like the driveways do? They are made of cement too. When are most subdivisions done? Not in January.

I was told to prevent the rest of the failure since I have 3 strikes against me to get cement sealer since the stuff that is natural sealing it isn't working. If I put that on, I'll eliminate any more failure.

And if you think you can get a builder to replace it... You will have a better chance of winning the lottery in Utah. (note: Utah doesn't have a lottery) The failure isn't structural failure just cosmetic therefore it isn't covered :)

So to save your investment, buy cement sealer and seal your driveways.