While I was waiting for Kelly, I was working in the shop with the overhead door open. A very nice, and very large, Dodge crew cab pickup stopped, and three men got out. One introduced himself, and said, "We're with Penn Paving, and we're paving right around the corner. We have some material left, and we're going to do some patching for your neighbor right across the alley here. Would you like some repairs on your parking lot?"
Grant St. has a nice sized little lot, enough for four cars easily, or six with squeezing. But the gravel cover was very thin, and it was a muddy mess when it rained. I replied, "No, I don't want it patched, I want it redone!" As the discussion progressed, I also mentioned that the concrete ramp up into the garage was cracked and missing chunks, and I'd like it redone also.
He suggested that we just dig out the ramp, and regrade the lot so that it comes up the the door without a ramp. I liked that idea, and we settled on a price and shook on it. That was it - no money down, no contract, and they went right to work. About an hour later, the ramp was gone (you can see the rubble at the back of the lot) and the material they had on hand was spread:
Today, it rained in the morning, but as soon as it stopped, work commenced again. A dump truck arrived with a lot more material. They couldn't maneuver it into the alley, so they had to unload it with the end loader a scoop at a time. It was astonishing how quickly he could do that!
But before the unloading could happen, they had to remove all the rubble from the ramp, and also a big pile that was in the back corner of the lot - it was there when I bought it! They moved it around the corner for later removal:
Here's a sequence of the end loader scooping material from the dump truck - I was snapping pictures about one every two seconds!
As the material was moved to the lot, it was spread by hand, using rakes and shovels. I had no idea that work was still so manual-labor intensive:
Once it was all spread, they used a cute little "steam roller" to level it all out. Here's the first pass, which really shows how much that heavy little beast compresses it:
And here's the almost-finished lot (somehow, I forgot to take a picture when it was all done). It will take a couple of weeks to fully harden, so I've asked the neighbors to stay out and I'll do the same. This material, unlike gravel, has enough binder to stay put, but it is also still water-permeable. Very important, because in our city you can't cover over ground that currently drains water. In fact, we made it better by tearing out the concrete and replacing it with permeable material. It's all good!
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