Concrete repair · Based in Eau Claire
Driveway Approach and Entrance Apron Replacement
The entrance is the piece every customer drives over first, and the piece nobody on the property is sure they own. In Eau Claire the city defines it, says what it is made of, and says how wide it can be.
What a Drive Apron Is
Eau Claire's ordinance defines the word, which settles most of the argument about what to call it. Under 16.36.080(A)(1), "drive apron" means the connection between a driveway and the traveled portion of the street, in the public right-of-way, including any sidewalk area abutting thereon.
Two things follow from that sentence. The apron is the piece between your pavement and the street, and it is in the public right of way rather than on the property. That is why the entrance is the part of a lot nobody is sure they own, and it is why work on one runs through the city.
The city also says what it is made of. Under 16.36.080(C), all drive aprons are surfaced with concrete when the adjacent street is or has been improved with curb and gutter. And under 16.36.120(B) a nonresidential drive apron is not less than 11 feet nor more than 30 feet wide, measured at the inside edge of the sidewalk line.
Words for the same piece
- Drive apron, which is the city's term
- Driveway approach
- Entrance apron, on a commercial lot
- Curb cut, when the opening is being made
Whatever it says on your work order, it is the concrete between the street and your pavement, including the piece the public sidewalk crosses, and the city's code covers it.
What Breaks an Approach
An approach is a joint between two slabs that belong to different people and were built to different specs. The street sits on a road section with a deep base under it. The private drive sits on whatever was there when it went in. Frost gets under the shallower one first, and through a winter the two move different amounts.
It also takes more abuse per square foot than any other concrete on a property. The city plow's wing drops at the gutter line and rides across the approach, and everything the plow throws off the street lands on it, so it carries the heaviest salt load anywhere on the property.
What that produces is a crack at or near the gutter line. The crack takes water into the base, the base goes soft, the next winter opens it wider, and the piece every customer drives over first is the piece that looks worst.
Three aprons on this site fail three different ways. A dock apron goes under a trailer's landing gear. A dumpster pad goes under the truck's lifting cycle at the front lip. An approach goes at the joint with the street. Which one you have decides what the fix is, and they are not interchangeable.
What we look at
- Where the crack sits against the gutter line
- Whether the apron has dropped or only cracked
- What the curb on either side of it is doing
- How wide the opening is at the sidewalk line
- Whether the private side is concrete or asphalt at the joint
An apron that has dropped is telling you the base under it has gone, and new concrete on the same base drops the same way. That is a different job from a slab that cracked and stayed level.
What the Code Says
Each row is one named city's ordinance and applies to a property in that city. A property somewhere else goes by that town's code, and which permit a job needs is a question for the city that governs it.
| What | The rule | Whose rule it is |
|---|---|---|
| Drive apron, defined | The connection between a driveway and the traveled portion of the street, in the public right-of-way, including any sidewalk area abutting thereon | Eau Claire 16.36.080(A)(1) |
| What it is surfaced with | Concrete, where the adjacent street is or has been improved with curb and gutter | Eau Claire 16.36.080(C) |
| Nonresidential apron width | Not less than 11 feet nor more than 30 feet, measured at the inside edge of the sidewalk line | Eau Claire 16.36.120(B) |
| Work in the right of way | No excavation or installation of any structure in a street, alley or public place without first obtaining a permit from the department of engineering | Eau Claire 13.10.020 |
| Who the driveway permit issues to | Only the contractor performing the work, or a general responsible for the sub, or the owner where the owner is actually performing all of the work | Chippewa Falls 8.04(1)(a) |
| Surfacing an approach | All approaches constructed or altered are portland cement concrete, and an unsurfaced approach has to be concrete within two years of notice from the City | Altoona 12.12.030 |
The Chippewa Falls row is the one that catches people out. A property manager who assumed he could file for the permit and then shop the job cannot, unless he is doing every bit of the work himself. That is worth knowing before the bids go out rather than after.
How We Replace an Approach
Measured at the sidewalk line, cut out, based, formed to the street grade, poured and tied back in.
Measure the opening at the sidewalk line
The width that matters is measured at the inside edge of the sidewalk line, which is where Eau Claire's 11 to 30 foot range for a nonresidential apron is taken from.
Saw cut at the street and at the drive
Cut back to a straight edge at both ends rather than following the crack, so the new apron starts against sound material on the street side and on the private side.
Take out the apron and haul it off
Broken slab out and hauled away, down to whatever the new pour needs to sit on. On an apron that has dropped rather than cracked, that means going past the soft ground that dropped it.
Prepare and compact the base
Graded and compacted. Concrete poured on soft ground cracks on a schedule set by the ground, not by the concrete, and the shallower side of this joint is the one frost gets under.
Form to the street grade and set the steel
Formed to grade so water still runs where it should at the gutter line, and reinforced where the span and the loading call for it, which on an entrance means every vehicle that uses the property.
Pour and broom finish
Placed, screeded, floated and broom finished, with control joints cut where the slab is going to crack, so that it cracks there instead of across the middle of the entrance.
Tie the asphalt back in at the joint
Where the private side is blacktop, the asphalt is cut tight to the new edge, compacted, and the joint sealed. An open joint there puts water into the base under the asphalt first.
Aprons on a Residential Drive
On a house the word usually means the concrete apron at the garage door, where the slab in the doorway meets the drive. It fails for the same reason a street approach does: it is a joint between two slabs poured at different times, and frost gets under the shallower one first.
Where the drive is asphalt, the apron is a concrete slab with blacktop tied against it. The blacktop gets saw cut back to a straight edge, the apron is formed and poured, and the asphalt goes back tight against the new concrete with the joint sealed. Left open, that joint takes water down it every spring and the asphalt side is what gives first.
The other apron on a house is at the street, and that one is the city's drive apron in the code above. It is in the right of way, the same rules apply to it as to a commercial entrance, and it is not the piece at the garage door.
The two aprons on a house
- At the garage door, where the slab meets the drive
- At the street, in the public right of way
They are different pieces of concrete with different rules on them, and a job on one is not a job on the other. Which one you mean is the first question on the call.
What Usually Comes With It
The entrance is rarely the only concrete that has gone at that end of the property.
This page is the entrance at the street. The dock apron fails under a trailer's landing gear and the dumpster pad fails under the truck's lifting cycle. For new flatwork and the rest of the concrete, see concrete.
Questions We Get
What is a driveway apron?
Is a driveway approach the same thing as an apron?
Who is responsible for the apron, us or the city?
Does the apron have to be concrete?
How wide can a commercial entrance be?
The apron cracked right where it meets the gutter. Why there?
Send a Photo of the Entrance
One from the street looking in, and one from the lot looking out, so the gutter line and both sides of the joint are in frame. Where the crack sits is most of the answer.
(715) 450-9897