The most common thing people ask us for is not a new driveway. It is the one they have, a few feet wider, so the second car is not on the grass.
That is a smaller job than most people expect, as long as the tie-in is done right and the city rules at the street are followed.
The three extensions we do most
A side strip. Two to four feet along one or both edges of the existing driveway, so two cars fit side by side. This is the most common extension in Orlando and the cheapest.
A parking pad. A separate slab off to the side for a boat, a trailer, an RV or a third car. Poured thicker, usually five or six inches with heavier reinforcement, because a trailer tongue or an RV axle concentrates weight in a way a car does not.[1]
A wider apron. Flaring the driveway out at the street so you are not clipping the lawn on the way in. This is the one with rules, because it is in the city right-of-way.
The joint is the whole job
An extension fails at the line between the old concrete and the new. Poured as two separate slabs just butted together, they move independently: the new strip settles below the old, the joint opens, and water goes down it and washes the base out. We see this on a lot of extensions someone else poured.
The fix is to dowel the new slab into the old. Holes are drilled into the edge of the existing driveway, steel dowels are set in them, and the new concrete is poured around the dowels so the two slabs are pinned together and move as one. Under the new strip goes a compacted base, same as a full driveway, because a strip on bare sand settles even faster than a slab does.[2]
Then the finish is matched: broom direction, texture and the control joint lines carried through from the old slab, so the driveway reads as one piece rather than a driveway with a strip stuck on.
What the city allows at the street
Inside the City of Orlando, a permit is required to widen an existing driveway or to replace any part of it in the city right-of-way, which is the apron between the sidewalk or property line and the street.[3] Work entirely on your own property, behind the sidewalk line, generally does not.
The width limits for a single-family home are 30 feet at the curb and 24 feet at the street edge of the sidewalk. The driveway cannot start within 15 feet of a corner crosswalk or intersecting street, the apron cannot stick out past the face of the curb, and it cannot interfere with street drainage. The apron itself has to be at least six inches of concrete from the street edge to the property line.[3]
The surrounding cities have their own versions of these rules, and most HOAs in Windermere, Dr. Phillips, Metrowest and the Horizon West communities want a drawing before anything is poured. We handle the permit and the submittal as part of the job.
What it costs
A side strip is priced on its square footage plus the tie-in work. At Orlando's typical $6 to $10 per square foot for broom-finish concrete,[4] a three-foot strip along a forty-foot driveway is a low single-digit thousands job. A parking pad is priced by size and thickness. Widening the apron adds the right-of-way permit and a little more concrete at six inches deep.
What you are not paying for is a new driveway. The one you have works. You are paying for the extra square footage and for the joint being done right, which is the part worth paying for.
