So, the moobahn i live in has decided to lay asphalt on top of the existing concrete and, although they have apparently laid a nice carpet down ( remains to be seen, especially in the rainy season ) they don’t go right up to each individual house, most of which have a concrete/tiled ramp up into the garage/carport.

This is kind of understandable with the amount of different angles and lengths of ramps adopted by the owners.

What it has left me is a “ channel “ approximately 30 cm x 5 metres long which i know from experience will retain water ( always had a puddle here after raining).

( ignore the broken tiles, just another on my to do list )

There are drainage points either side of the ramp but a dip in the concrete right in front of the ramp meant there was always a small puddle.

I hadn’t tackled this earlier, been here since 2017, as have seen others attempting to divert the puddle using a build up of concrete failing badly, had considered some drainage holes but feared hitting the main water supply which runs somewhere under the ramp or washing away the subsoil, nobody wants a sinkhole opening up outside your house !!

Irrespective of any water just this channel across my access will become annoying very quickly as i usually line the car up straight to go inside.

Anyway, Thaiwatsadu sell 20 kg bags of asphalt premix so i figured i could tackle this myself and be careful enough to leave a small rise in the middle of the gate to send water towards the drains.

So my question ( finally ! ) is has anyone used this product ?

What tips can you give me ?

Am assuming better adherence is created using some tar like substance beforehand ? and heating the product would make it easier to work with ??

Will visit Thaiwatsadu to check out the product but don’t hold out for too much information from the staff so am relying on the good folks here at AN to give me some pointers.

TIA

Do you have a screed and something to tamp it down?

After a rain, chalk around the puddle, and coat it with asphalt sealer to help the cold asphalt stick.

9 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Do you have a screed and something to tamp it down?

After a rain, chalk around the puddle, and coat it with asphalt sealer to help the cold asphalt stick.

Bought a couple of diy asphalt bags from Thaiwatsadu but they were oblivious to any bonding agent .

The bag instructions shows just to clean out any dirt from the hole, pour the asphalt in and tamp it down which is probably okay for an asphalt driveway laid over compacted dirt.

But, further research and by watching them lay it on the road tells me i need some sort of bonding agent when laid on concrete.

So, have sourced some stuff which is used to seal inbetween concrete slabs on roads or bridges for expansion joints etc, applied hot has excellent adhesion to concrete and no doubt will stick to the asphalt like <deleted>e to a blanket !!

Not what i had in mind but am sure will do the trick.

Comes in a 6kg block of which needs melting to a liquid so will fire up the bucket barbecue and utilise an old pan tomorrow.

Brush on a layer then lay the asphalt on top and tamp it down with a hoe, aiming to leave it slightly higher in the middle so the water runs off either side.

Normally the water will sit in front of the ramp covering around 3/4 of the length of my gate opening so hopefully I can make it look better and stop the water pooling in front of my gate at the same time.

With any luck this time tomorrow I can post a photo of the finished product ( except for replacing the ceramic tiles ) and be proud of my work.

Yikes!

Why not just tip the road guys to do it?

21 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

Bought a couple of diy asphalt bags from Thaiwatsadu but they were oblivious to any bonding agent .

The bag instructions shows just to clean out any dirt from the hole, pour the asphalt in and tamp it down which is probably okay for an asphalt driveway laid over compacted dirt.

But, further research and by watching them lay it on the road tells me i need some sort of bonding agent when laid on concrete.

So, have sourced some stuff which is used to seal inbetween concrete slabs on roads or bridges for expansion joints etc, applied hot has excellent adhesion to concrete and no doubt will stick to the asphalt like <deleted>e to a blanket !!

Not what i had in mind but am sure will do the trick.

Comes in a 6kg block of which needs melting to a liquid so will fire up the bucket barbecue and utilise an old pan tomorrow.

Brush on a layer then lay the asphalt on top and tamp it down with a hoe, aiming to leave it slightly higher in the middle so the water runs off either side.

Normally the water will sit in front of the ramp covering around 3/4 of the length of my gate opening so hopefully I can make it look better and stop the water pooling in front of my gate at the same time.

With any luck this time tomorrow I can post a photo of the finished product ( except for replacing the ceramic tiles ) and be proud of my work.

You'll get better results if you can tamp it with something heavier than a hoe. If you have the solid bitumen you mention for adhesion you may want to add some if that to the asphalt you tamp.

15 minutes ago, Dan O said:

You'll get better results if you can tamp it with something heavier than a hoe. If you have the solid bitumen you mention for adhesion you may want to add some if that to the asphalt you tamp.

It is a fairly hefty hoe similar to the photo:

Yeah, a good idea as the asphalt doesn’t seem very flexible but is in a thick plastic bag. Certainly adding some of the stuff to the asphalt should hold it all together.

Gonna be interesting !

24 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Yikes!

Why not just tip the road guys to do it?

Yeah, i missed that boat i’m afraid, now have some guys painting the lines, asphalt guys are long gone.

You need a rapid setting Asphalt emulsion. Polymer modified would be best.

Also from your pic that hoe might not work so well with consistent flat tamping.

1 hour ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

It is a fairly hefty hoe similar to the photo:

Yeah, a good idea as the asphalt doesn’t seem very flexible but is in a thick plastic bag. Certainly adding some of the stuff to the asphalt should hold it all together.

Gonna be interesting !

it's not flat and it's not heavy enough.

3 hours ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

It is a fairly hefty hoe similar to the photo:

Yeah, a good idea as the asphalt doesn’t seem very flexible but is in a thick plastic bag. Certainly adding some of the stuff to the asphalt should hold it all together.

Gonna be interesting !

Something with more weight would do better to set the asphalt. The heavier the better

29 minutes ago, Dan O said:

Something with more weight would do better to set the asphalt. The heavier the better

Yeah, i think you are right, have been looking to see where i can buy a steel tamping tool online and enquired at a couple of the big box stores ( Thaiwatsadu and Homemart ) without success.

Could possibly get a local guy to weld one up for me for an appropriate fee.

Plenty of YouTube videos of people making a diy tamping tool by strapping a 10” x 10” piece of wood to the head of a sledgehammer which seems to work well for soil but probably needs a steel plate for asphalt which complicates it a little.

I can't wait for the video of this.