Frost heave

[Robert E Lee]

One of the inspections I did earlier this week had a rather severe frost heave at the driveway approach to the garage. As can be seen in the attached photo there was approx. a 5" difference between the garage slab and the drive. The buyer was quite concerned with this condition, I suggested he contact a concrete contractor about possible solutions such as a compacted gravel base that may not be subject to this amount of frost heave. Since I've been doing inspections (8 years) and paying attention to this sort of thing I only seem to see the condition in feb/mar time frames. I have always been interested in how long the condition lasts, and believe that in most cases the surface does return to the pervious position after the frost has gone out of the ground. Any of you see similiar situations?

Download Attachment: Frostheave.jpg

36.57 KB

[hausdok]

Hi Robert,

When you see those situations, are you also looking at how drainage is configured at the sides of the driveway? That's a lot of movement. My first thought when I saw it was that perhaps drainage around the driveway is poor and the ground beneath gets overly saturated so it heaves more.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Robert E Lee]

Yes, we talked about that as well. The backyard has an uphill slope, and the home next door has the a similiar condition with the drive (both are at the end of a cul-de-sac). Told him I thought that placing some drain tile from the backyard out towards the curb might move some of the moisture away and perhaps prevent re-occurance.

Robert E Lee

GENERAL Home Inspections, Inc

Rochester, MN