Doing My Best To Stimulate The Economy

Doing My Best To Stimulate The Economy

We've been planning a bit of work around the property--just in the interests of stimulating the local economy, of course! One of the projects was to complete the asphalting of the driveway. Due to a miscommunication with the paver last year, the asphalt stops about 130 feet from the front garage apron--and also stops about 10 feet from Sunburst Road on the other end.

Neither of these are particularly severe issues from a traction standpoint, even in heavy snow, because the driveway is pretty much flat in both places--but the reason to finish it, especially at the top, isn't just esthetics. It turns out that the snowthrower works really well on an even asphalt surface--but doesn't do so well on gravel. If we have asphalt from garage to the bottom of the hill, it's a heck of a lot faster to clear the snow--and once you have even a narrow piece of asphalt exposed to direct sunlight, it's amazing how fast that black surface absorbs infared, and melts the snow off the entire surface.

In addition, there are a couple of sharp curves coming up the hill where 8 1/2 feet wide really isn't quite wide enough--and we sometimes end up with tires over the edge. One consequence of this is, I suspect, a bit of cracking of the asphalt on one of those edges. Widening these two curves out to 10 feet would really help. It would also be nice to asphalt the back driveway, and complete the asphalt of the parking area in the front of the house.

I was putting off calling the pavers about this year's installment, hoping that either my wife or myself could get a full-time position with benefits--in which case, I would have been a lot more willing to spend the extra money on the back driveway and the front parking area. But our paver guy showed up at the front door this morning, and told me that his crew would be in the area shortly to do some other paving--so we reached an agreement to finish a strip to the front garage apron, widening the curves, and completing the section to Sunburst Road. If something works out about permanent employment before Thanksgiving, we'll have them come back and do some more work--otherwise, I guess that it will wait until next summer.

We also have another project that needs doing, and about which I am learning a lot. When we had the house built, we had a stamped, colored concrete done for the exterior sidewalks and garage aprons. It didn't come out spectacularly well (as previous postings have discussed), but the sun has bleached the surface enough that it is far less attractive than when it was completed 3 1/2 years ago.

Let me explain that from what I can gather, colored concrete seems to fit into one of three major color categories: acid etched, semi-transparent stain, and paint. The acid etch is somewhat artistic, and when all polished up, is pretty amazing. But the color choices are limited, because it is a chemical reaction on the concrete.

The semi-transparent stain is effectively a coloring agent that stains into the concrete, reinforicng the coloring agent added to the concrete. This is what we had done. On top of both the acid etch and semi-transparent stain you typically put a sealant, which provides a glossy finish, prevents water damage, and makes the color a bit more intense.

The third choice is a paint--which I don't think looks as good.

Anyway, sun exposure has pretty well taken away the sealant layer, and bleached the stain. I should probably have had it resealed the second year, but the change is so gradual that it is easy to not notice.

The first estimate we received to power wash the surface (which takes away any remaining sealant layer, in the sections not exposed to a lot of direct sun), restain, and reseal, was more than $1600. I found myself wondering if someone decided that we were richer than we are. But when I went to Sherwin-Williams to see what the cost of the stain and sealant was--the materials cost alone at retail was about $1100. (This is for the H&C Semi-Transparent Decorative Stain. I suspect that most of the other makers of this stuff are pretty much the same, but if you have experience, let me know!)

The actual labor involved doesn't seem so bad as to scare me offf. After you powerwash the concrete (about $25 a day to rent a power washer), you then roll the stain on the concrete, and let it dry. Then you spray the sealant on top. There's about 2500 square feet of concrete to do, so I suspect that we could get it all done over one very long weekend, or perhaps do front and rear on different weekends.

I've been hunting around; there are more reasonable prices available online for the same stain and sealant, which would get the materials cost (including shipping) down to about $700-$800. We have someone else coming out to give us an estimate tomorrow. If this second estimate is even close to the online materials cost, it would be tempting to let someone else who has the power washer, rollers, and sprayer, do the work.

Once we have it done, I'll stay on top of it in the future, and reseal every second year. With a little care, I think we can reseal for about $400, and not need to restain each time.

UPDATE: Another concrete guy came up to give us an estimate on restaining and resealing. His estimate was $5000. He insisted that the materials alone would be $2000 (even though I told him that I knew that the retail price of the materials at Sherwin-Williams was about $1100, and being a contractor, he probably got a better price), and his labor would be about $3000. This is, at most, a two day job. It is at most two hours to power wash the concrete; and about four hours to roll the stain. Come back the next day after the stain has dried, and perhaps four hours to spray the sealer. Even if I assume that the capital he has tied up in a power washer and painting supplies is worth $500 for two days (and that's quite a leap), that's $1250 per day for his labor.

I'm not seeing evidence of the declining economy that I was expecting. And no, I didn't have the garage open, so he didn't see the Corvette and the Jaguar.