31 October 2016

Gary Dupois (Craig’s brother) and his band of asphalting associates arrived just after 7 to begin paving the driveway.  First they laid down a base course with asphalt containing ¾″ stone and nominally 1½″ thick.  Then they laid down a top coat with asphalt containing ⅜″ stone and nominally 1″ thick.  They used a 5 ton vibrating roller to compact the bejesus out of each course.  Actual thickness of the finished driveway is more like 4″ thick… and the thicker the better!  By early afternoon the crew was gone and we had a mud-free drive out to the road… that easily passes the 30 mph-with-no-loose-fillings test.

29 October 2016

Craig Dupois from D&F Paving and Excavating arrived first thing this Saturday morning to do final preparations for paving the driveway… a job that we were led to believe (when we signed the contract at the end of May) would happen in late July or early August.  First item of business was for Craig and me to blow forty million leaves off the drive, which mysteriously accumulated while Chree and I were away these past two weeks.  (FYI: in Vermont lexicon, “away” denotes any location south of Rutland.)  Then Craig re-graded the driveway so that (in theory) water will flow where we want it to once the pavement is laid down.  After all the slopes were set, Craig rolled the driveway to compact the gravel.  Rained off and on all day, which was both good and bad news.  The good news is that the re-graded driveway squished packed down very tight when Craig rolled it, making a firm foundation which the asphalt will surely like.  The bad news is that we (that would be Shlomo… admittedly with some help) tracked several pecks of mud into the house.

Side note: Even with outdoor temperatures falling into the 30’s at night, we’re finding that if we fire up the woodstove with one load of wood every other day, the house stays comfortably warm without using the radiant floor heating.  Now that’s a tight house!