Question on tearing up ashphalt driveway.

[Bruce999]

Hello,

The previous owners of my house were ashphalt-addicts. They made little pathways to the shed, to the picnic table, to the garage, etc. The driveway itself runs up the side of the house and then blossoms into this massive expanse behind the house before terminating at the garage. Even though the lot is fairly large, there is simply no room for a backyard lawn with all the ashphalt. Time to remedy that.

Is there a way to avoid jagged edges when tearing up sections of ashphalt? I want to tear up all the little paths, but I don't want there to be big jagged edges where they used to connect to the driveway. Also, I want to narrow the driveway behind the house so that it is only one car-width wide. However, I don't know how to make the edge nice and smooth so that my kids won't keep falling over it. I haven't started this project yet, but I plan on renting a jackhammer from Home Depot, and then just following a chalk line until I have left only what I want. Is there any way to "finish" it properly?

Thanks,
Bruce.

[mdshunk]

Asphalt isn't all that thick, normally. You can get a carborundum blade for your curcular saw at the home center for about 5 bucks. These do a good job sawing a nice cut line in asphalt. They do wear down, so if you're making lots of cuts, buy several. Once you cut your line, then you can tear it up. Depending on the width of the walking path, a jackhammer might not even be necessary. You might be able to just get a digging bar under the edge and start popping chunks up with a prying action.

[Bumblerazz]

I agree. When we had to place some posts for my neighbours driveway gate we used a pick axe to break it up and then poped it up with regular shovels.

Then to fix up the ragged edges we used a blow torch to heat it up and pounded it smooth with the back-side of a spade.

I'm not suggesting this to do your whole project, just letting you know that it's not as hard as it might seem to break up or smooth out. Maybe save the jackhammer rental until you've seen how difficult it really is.

[scuba_dave]

I ripped up a good part of my old driveway just using a shovel & pry bar
It's old, so it came apart pretty easily

The rest will be ripped up next year when the new driveway goes in

[Bruce999]

I bought a pick axe based on these replies and will give it a go. The problem with the circular saw idea is that I don't own one. Blow torch and a spade! Excellent, I would never have thought of it.

Thanks for the replies.

Bruce.

[scuba_dave]

I also did this in hot weather in the sun
So the tar was soft to begin with

[Bruce999]

Thanks for the tips, thought I might post just in case someone else stumbles across this forum topic. The blow torch idea worked like a charm. After shaping the ashphalt edge as best I could with the pick axe, I used a propane torch to heat the ashphalt, and then a sledge hammer to shape it. That made my line almost perfectly straight, and got rid of all jaggies. Just for fun, I tried the hammer on a section without using the torch, but the ashphalt just crumbled as it was only about 15 C out. It probably would have been much easier had it been 35 degrees out, but I would have had to wait until next summer......

It didn't take much heating for the ashphalt to become malleable, so I would heat up about 1 meter at a time, then whack it into shape. I also purchased a circular Masonry blade for my drill which just attaches onto the end of it with a special bit (sorry, forget the name of it). That was a waste of money. I have a rechargeable 14.4v drill, and even with a full charge, the revolutions weren't high enough to make the blade effective. It would bite in, then catch, over and over. Eventually I broke the blade and only managed to make a small section straight in 90 mins of effort. The sledge hammer + blow torch was much more efficient.

Cheers,
Bruce