Paving Contractor in Lithia Springs, GA

Driveway Paving for Older Lithia Springs Homes

In the late 1800s, Lithia Springs, also called Salt Springs, grew into a resort around mineral springs. Visitors came for water thought to have healing powers, and the grand Sweetwater Park Hotel housed them. The hotel burned in 1912. The county's 2023 plan calls the Bankhead Highway, built through here in 1919, one of the first paved coast-to-coast routes.

That road is now Veterans Memorial Highway, US 78, and the plan calls it the main street of Lithia Springs. The 2020 Census counted 16,644 people here. Census estimates show about half of the homes are single-family detached houses, against about 3 in 4 countywide. About 3 in 10 sit in buildings of five or more units, and about 1 in 10 are mobile homes.

Apartment buildings like these come with shared parking lots. On a driveway or lot with a sound base, an overlay can be enough. When the base has failed, the job is new pavement from the stone base up.

Why Do Driveways Crack and Sink in Lithia Springs?

Federal soil maps put Appling soils under more of Lithia Springs than any other kind. They cover about 28 percent of the land, with sandy topsoil over firm clay about a foot down. NRCS, the federal soil agency, rates the most common Appling units very limited for local roads and streets. The reason is low strength, which means the soil is weak under heavy loads.

Hard rock adds another problem. The county's plan maps a large swath of granite and granitic gneiss in central Lithia Springs. On the Ashlar soils that cover nearly a fifth of the land, NRCS puts bedrock 20 to 40 inches down. Rock that shallow can limit how deep the grading goes.

Water makes both worse. NOAA's weather station at the Fulton County Airport, about 7 miles east, averages about 48 inches of rain a year. Lows there fall to freezing or below on about 52 nights a year. Wet clay carries weight poorly, and each freeze pries cracks wider.

For the local streets it accepts, Douglas County's code calls for a 6-inch base of graded aggregate stone. We grade for drainage, then set a compacted base of crusher run and base stone. We haul that stone in our own dump trucks. Older cracks and potholes get asphalt repair and patching before water works under them.

Sweetwater Creek Flood Zones and Stream Buffers

U.S. Geological Survey maps show Sweetwater Creek and two smaller streams, Buttermilk Creek and Dry Creek, inside Lithia Springs. The National Weather Service tracks Sweetwater Creek at a gauge near Austell, at the edge of town. Flood stage there is 10 feet. In September 2009, the creek crested at 30.82 feet, the highest on record.

The county's plan says the most significant flood zones here follow Sweetwater Creek near Westfork, by Thornton Road. NRCS maps about 1 acre in 12 as creek-bottom soil that floods often. On those bottoms, Chewacla soil has a seasonal high water table 6 to 24 inches down, November to April.

Douglas County's code also guards the streams. It keeps a natural buffer along each regulated stream, plus a wider setback where hard surfaces cannot go. Asphalt counts as a hard surface under the code. We plan the layout and the drainage around those lines.

Asphalt Paving for Business Lots on Thornton Road

Thornton Road is GA 6, the same state route that passes Hiram and Dallas. The county's plan calls the stretch through Westfork a critical truck route. Westfork was planned as an industrial park in 1973, on farmland and floodplain along branches of Sweetwater Creek. Where Thornton Road meets Veterans Memorial Highway, the plan notes car dealers and repair shops on large paved lots.

A lot that carries trucks needs a strong stone base and good drainage. We pave new lots and re-pave worn ones, then stripe them. On a sound lot, we fill the cracks first, then apply sealcoating and restripe.

Douglas County has handed its erosion and stormwater rules to the Douglasville-Douglas County Water and Sewer Authority. Those rules reach most projects that create or replace 5,000 square feet or more of hard surface. The code leaves resurfacing a paved area out of its definition of redevelopment. Those offices have the final word on any lot, and we point you there before work starts.