As the most-used feature of your yard, an ideal driveway offers room for parking, turning around and getting out of your vehicle without stepping into the yard. Many driveways only have room for one car to do all that. When you get a second car, you may wind up running over into the yard, tearing up your landscape just to park. You can avoid this by expanding your driveway.
Preparing the Expansion
Draw a scaled diagram of the existing driveway, yard and the road around your driveway. Include sidewalks, mailboxes and other obstacles. Measure the obstacles, driveway and how much yard you have between each of them. Label the diagram with the measurements.
Research the regulations in your municipality to determine if you can widen the public-access portion of your driveway, how wide you can make it, and what type of permit you need to widen it. Check neighborhood regulations on driveway sizes. Compare those regulations with the size of your current driveway.
Contact your utility company and request someone to come out and mark your utilities. They will paint the ground, indicating where any utility lines run underneath the surface so you do not inadvertently dig through them or damage them with your expansion.
Determine how much wider to make the driveway. Plan for which side, or both sides, to install the expansion. Move plants and other landscape elements as needed.
Transfer the measurements from the diagram to the yard using landscape paint. If you cannot widen the public-access portion of the driveway, taper the expansion from where it begins.
Dig up the grass from the markings to the existing driveway using a shovel. Set the extra grass aside for use in a compost pile or to patch other areas of your yard. Dig 11 inches down for installing pavers, 4 inches deeper than the existing driveway to pour concrete or 12 inches to add more gravel.
Pour a 4-inch-deep layer of granular fill into the expansion. Compact the fill using the plate compactor. Continue compacting all the way to the very edge of the expansion -- being careful not to leave any of the fill loose where it meets the yard.
Set concrete forms along the edges of the expansion. Brace them with stakes as needed to hold them in place. Screw the forms directly to the stakes for easier removal after the concrete cures.
Transfer the concrete mixture from the back of the truck into a wheelbarrow. Dump the wheelbarrow loads into the expansion area until it is filled. Fill the area to the top edge of the forms.
Smooth over the top of the concrete as you go with a two-by-four that is longer than the expansion is wide. First slide the board side to side across the expansion, then finish smoothing with a bull float. Leave the concrete to cure for 48 hours.
Remove the forms and seal the concrete as desired. Leave the concrete to cure for five more days before driving on it.
Cover the dirt with a layer of landscape fabric. Overlap the fabric with the sides of the expansion by four inches.
Pour 4 inches in depth of large-sized, angular gravel, about the size of baseballs. Compact the layer using a tamping machine.
Pour a second layer of gravel with rocks about the size of golf balls. Compact the layer with the tamping machine.
Pour a final layer of gravel, about the size of marbles, to finish filling the excavation area. Pour the gravel so they extend slightly higher than the existing driveway surface. Tamp down the gravel, tightly packing it and evening it out with the existing driveway.
Compact the soil with a plate compactor.
Pour a layer of crushed gravel, 4 inches deep, into the expansion. Wet the gravel, then pack it down with the compactor. Continue packing until you can walk on the gravel without making an indentation.
Pour a second layer of gravel, 3 to 4 inches deep, then wet and compact it again. Measure the distance from the top of the gravel to the surface of the existing driveway. Make sure the distance and the thickness of the pavers is the same.
Pour a 1-inch-thick bed of sand on top of the gravel. Smooth out the sand with a two-by-four; avoid any interaction with it until you place the pavers on top.
Set the pavers into the sand in the pattern of your choice. Tightly butt the edges of the pavers together. Start at the corner between the existing driveway and one end of the expansion, then work your way outward.
Measure and mark individual pavers for cutting as needed. Once marked, cut the paver with a wet saw and install just as you did the full-size pavers.
Sweep the pavers once you finish installing them. Spread a layer of masonry sand into the joints between them. Use the plate compactor to tamp down the pavers and set them. Sweep the excess sand from the surface.
Things You Will Need
- Tape measure
- Landscape paint
- Granular fill
- Plate compactor
- Concrete forms
- Truckload of concrete
- Concrete sealer
- Landscape fabric
- Large gravel
- Tamping machine
- Medium gravel
- Small gravel
- Crushed gravel
- Masonry sand
- Wet saw
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