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Top 5 Chicken Run Wire Options for ...
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Top 5 Chicken Run Wire Options for Happy HensWire mesh for concrete driveway is a must as most residential concrete driveways are 4” thick. Use wire mesh for concrete driveway that is 4” thick and rebar for concrete that is 6″ thick. Reinforcement will more than double the load bearing capacity of a concrete driveway.
Concrete is an extremely strong construction material when it comes to compressive strength. Driveways typically use concrete with compressive strength between 3000 and 4000 psi.
Unfortunately, concrete has a relatively poor tensile strength. Concrete with compressive strength of 3000 – 4000 psi may have a tensile strength of just 300 – 400 psi.
Concrete driveways are subject to tensile and flexural stress in addition to compressive stress. Concrete driveway, reinforced with wire mesh, will be able to withstand tensile stresses, especially those caused by ground movement, a lot better.
Moreover, some local building codes may require the use of welded wire mesh in concrete driveways. So do check your code before.
Building a concrete driveway without wire mesh reinforcement, just to reduce the initial cost is certainly not a good idea. Without wire mesh reinforcement, your concrete driveway will sink, heave and crack within a season or two.
Even a well prepared subgrade, sub-base and base will settle in the first season or two. The settling is never uniform. A concrete driveway, without wire mesh reinforcement will develop cracks.
The cracks will grow over time. Rainwater will permeate into the concrete and corrode it from within. You will be spending a lot of time and money on repairing and filling up the cracks.
Typically when sections of the grade sink, wire mesh reinforced concrete does not sink. The wire mesh keeps the driveway together and it remains level. However, without reinforcement, the concrete sinks along with the grade resulting in potholes.
The potholes in the driveway are not just ugly to look at. They are also detrimental to the lifespan of the driveway. Rainwater collects in the potholes to form puddles. The concrete driveway begins to crumble at the pothole edges as car tires go over it.
The functional life of a concrete driveway, without wire mesh reinforcement, is significantly lower.
A very important reason for choosing concrete rather than asphalt or gravel for your driveway is strength & durability.
This objective is defeated if you do not reinforce the concrete driveway with welded wire mesh.
A thickness of 4” for a concrete driveway is considered as standard for residential driveways. It can bear the load of passenger cars without cracking or failing.
While concrete slab thickness is an important factor to determine the load bearing capacity of a driveway, there are other factors that play a role too. These are:
It could be that you require a concrete driveway that is able to withstand higher levels of load.
Some grades can swell or settle depending on moisture content levels. Significant ground movement can also be a consequence of soil erosion, mild seismic activity and growth of tree roots. In really cold climates you need to keep freeze thaw cycles in the equation too!
In such situations it is better to increase the concrete thickness from 4” to 6” and use galvanized steel bars instead of welded wire mesh. You will get a driveway that is more than twice as strong, will need lower maintenance and will have a longer lifespan.
A rebar reinforced 6” thick concrete driveway is a good investment, as you may buy heavier vehicles such as an RV or a camper van in the future.
However, increasing reinforcement without adequate concrete driveway thickness will still result in a a driveway that will fail easily and will have a low lifespan.
Use wire mesh for driveways that are 4 to 5 inches thick, and rebar for those that are 5 inches or more.
Concrete Network
A 6×6 W1.4/W1.4 10/10 (20lbs/100SF) size wire mesh is a good choice for a 4” thick concrete driveway.
The welded wire mesh nomenclature gives the specifications. The 6X6 means that the wires are placed 6” apart on center (OC). The result is a grid with 6” squares.
The W1.4/W1.4 means that the cross sectional area of the wires is 0.014 sq. inches. The 10/10 means that wires running lengthwise and widthwise are gauge 10. The nominal diameter of gauge 10 wire is 0.135 inches.
The (20lbs/100SF) lets you know that the wire mesh weighs 20 lbs for every 100 sq. feet.
Sometimes the wire mesh spec may just say 6X6X10X10. It still means the same thing; a mesh with 6” square holes made from gauge 10 wires.
The area of the wire mesh required will be approximately 10% more than the area of the concrete driveway. The extra 10% is to allow for overlapping of wire mesh sections or rolls.
You also need to buy chairs on which to place the wire mesh. This will ensure that the wire mesh is nicely embedded in the concrete slab. Wire mesh too close to the bottom or top edge of the concrete driveway is not effective reinforcement.
The bottom line is that the use of wire mesh for concrete driveway reinforcement will more than double its load bearing capacity. Reinforcement reduces crack propagation and enhances the lifespan of the concrete driveway.
Thank you very much for reading this post. I do hope you found it informative and helpful.
If you have any questions on What Wire Mesh to Use in Concrete. We will give the professional answers to your questions.