Seems extremely cheap to me, but so does 5.50/sq ft. driveway pavers require a lot of prep

I have a similar driveway layout to yours, also in FL. Mine extend about 9.5" past the garage opening on either side, which is the length of the rectangular paver we used as a soldier course on the edges.

Have you seen a driveway with TriCircle charcola and white? I found their colors/patterns to be a bit splotchy when installed. Ask TriCircle for customers who installed this color in your geographic area, so you can drive by and see a larger sample.

Do you have 2 single doors or one double door for each garage?

How wide is the approach? That is one area I wish i had done a a few feet wider.

Make sure they install conduits under the driveway running to your planting area on either side of the doors, in case you want to install landscape lighting. Also make sure they install drainage pipes under the driveway to take the water away from those planters, whether you have gutters or not.

Also make sure they clearly mark the location of any buried conduits! We have one that no one has been able to find and we could have used it for installing landscape lighting and invisible dog fence. If you don't have or can't find conduits, they need to start pulling up pavers, which works fine, but takes more time and costs more.

$1000/300 sq ft = $3.33 per sq foot which is less than you said the rest of it costs. So seems like a good deal.

$36K is definitely the price range for a driveway that size.

Truth is that $1K more is close to insignificant as a percentage of your total build cost ... but will you wish you had widened it every time you pull up to your house! Not being annoyed every time you drive up to your house, now that is priceless!

"Sounds like a no-brainer, it’ll give you more room stepping out of the car."

There is no catch.

My mistake. I meant to say it was $10,000 to widen it, not 1000.

Will you park in the garages? If so, how often will someone park on the driveway? Are they overnight guests or only there for a few hours? At anyone one time, how many cars would be parked on the driveway? Only you can judge if the additional paved area is worthwhile.

I corrected the post. I left out a zero. It’s not $1000, that wouldn’t be a problem. It’s $10,000. That’s a big difference!

Gina Gilgo, since we have two 2 car garages, we would probably only occasionally park in the driveway. I’m surprised at the cost. The pavers for the rest of the driveway cost less than six dollars a square foot. Looks like, if this is about 300 ft.², it’s about $35 a square foot.

J F, it’s $10,000, not 1000. My bad.

Park your car on a surface that shows footprints. Get out of the car and walk around the car twice and get in the passenger side door. Get out of the car and measure the distance from the farthest footprint on the driver's side to the farthest footprint on the passenger's side. That distance can be used for you to determine the width of your driveway.

The financial part of it is up to you to determine.

"it’s $10,000, not 1000."

There's the catch.

Mark, exactly! We wouldn’t blink an eye for $1000. But, $10,000 is a pretty big expense, especially considering we are coming in over budget. Everything costs a lot more than the builder allowances.

I would point out the math to the builder and ask them to double check the pricing and see if there is any negotiation room to bring it down. Before you widen the driveway by your garage, I would consider how wide the long drive portion is. It's hard to tell but it looks relatively narrow. How wide is that part? Do you need 2 cars to be able to pass one another, or will you ever have a lot of guests that need to park on the long driveway while leaving room for cars to pass?

Have you picked out cabinets, counters, and lighting yet? I'd want to upgrade the driveway but if I hadn't picked those other things yet, and was already over budget, it might not be the "best" idea.

T T, the long driveway is 12 feet wide. We don’t plan to have a lot of guests. We don’t need two cars to be able to pass each other

My approach is 16 feet wide and I wouldn't want it any narrower.

chispa, our doors are 18’, so that is the planned width of our driveways in front of the garages. To increase it to 22’, the width of the garage, will cost $10,000.

I was saying that my long driveway is 16 feet wide, instead of the 12 ft they are proposing for yours. My width in front of the garages is 21 feet, but I have 2 x 9 ft single doors with space in between.

My plans had a lot more details. I just measured and the finished width is 21 ft and not the 22 ft on the plan. I think you could get away with 20-21 feet. This was not my paver pattern just something the architect drew in. I like doing a border with one paver size and then filling the middle with the multi paver pattern. Make sure to adjust quantities ordered if you are doing a border.

they want to charge us nearly $10,000 for widening the driveway just two feet on both sides.

2 feet on both sides = 4 feet additional width x 2 garages = 8 feet increased width.

X however long the drive is.

IMO it doesn’t matter if it is a deal or not. It is $10,000 better spent elsewhere. If you are not going to park in the driveway you are unlikely to need the extra space and it seems like a waste of money to me.

Bry911 makes a good point. Given your situation, I wouldn't spend the 10k.

For the long drive, at 12' width, I would highly recommend planning out how you will light the area so it's easy to see at night. 12' is a bit on the narrow side (but maybe not a big issue if the long drive is straight the entire way)

Btw, as a reference point, 12' is the width of a standard highway lane. So it's not like it's tiny but it does mean you have to pay attention to stay within the lane. We went with 20' width after doing a lot of reading of ideal widths while balancing against cost.

We have a home that the drive is only as wide as the garage doors and hate it because when we’re parked outside we have to step onto the grass when exiting car. If building and it’s in the budget I’d consider changing it. Can you get a quote from anyone else on doing the driveway?

Start with the width of your car. Mine is 73". Our less than 120" wide drive is wide enough.. Your design leads me to believe you won't be parking on the 12' portion. I'd reduce that to 10' and add the 'saved' pavers to the garage areas at least on the outer portions. that's where a car could get parked to allow easy in and out access to the garage on the left and still get out of the driver's door. Less problem on the right. From the drawing, I'd wouldn't add pavers to the inside and reduce the radius of the curve any.

dan1888, thanks for your suggestion. We don’t want to reduce the width of the long part of the driveway less than 12 feet because we may have a boat trailer.

ci_lantro, yes, I know how to figure out square footage

Pavers are $$$$$ there's just no getting around that. Maybe you should change materials all together. Not only are they the big expense out front they are a constant maintenance drag. Shoveling them is frustrating and the weeds in every crack need weekly attention.

arcy_gw, it’s a Florida house. No shoveling there. HOA requirement it’s either pavers or concrete, which tends to crack in the Florida heat. We’re definitely going with pavers. No real other option

Hope everyone excels at driving backwards? Can we see the house elevation?

JAN MOYER- Here it is. We tried to design the driveway for plenty of room to turn around, so you don’t need to drive backwards

I hope you are really good maneuvering with a trailer! We have a small single axle one for our kayaks and it goes wherever it wants when backing up! We usually end up disconnecting it and moving it by hand to get it in the spot we want, which might not work with bigger trailers.

Never say never, there will still be times when you need to drive backwards, so I would want that long driveway a bit wider.

I think driveway pavers are great and we have no issues with weeds in ours. Have used pavers in CA and FL, so no snow.

I think the issue is the cost. I would ask the builder why the price is so high. Maybe he can come down enough in price to make it more palatable. Are you sure you want those pavers? I looked them up and they appear busy due to extreme variation.

rockybird, yes, my husband is flying to Florida to meet with the builder in person and find out why an approximately 300 square foot increase increased the paver price from $5.5/sq foot to about $35. Yes, we’re sure about the pavers.

The paver supplier can give you 3 names of installers. Treat this as a separate home improvement and gets bids. Use that to take over this segment or as negotiating material.

How long is each of those driveway sections being considered for widening? You have two long runs and two shorter runs there.

beesneeds, I measured 18 feet on one side and about 10-12 on the other. I’d like the flare it like this.

Are the measurements for what the OP pic shows, or what your flares are supposed to be?

Who drew up the plans for the driveway? A professional who doesn't know what width approach is necessary for a two car garage? Add to that the driveway itself only allows one car at a time. My driveway leading to my garage has room for two cars to be side by side. As Jan Moyer points out, who will be the one to back up to let the other pass? Must you continue with the builder's installer?

If I were your husband, I would challenge the design and get a couple of bids from independents.

beesneeds, I measured about 120 ft.² for the flares

So what is the 300? Guessing on the OP pic, or guessing on your flares? Do you have confirmation from the contractor what the specifications are of the highlighted area in the OP other than 2 foot wider on four sides?

We measured 300 ft.² on what our builder sent us highlighted in yellow, the original photo. The contractor says yes, 2 feet wider on all four sides.

Widen the drive only at one garage. That way after two years of living in the house you will know if the other drive should be widened or not.

I don't know, there's something about new drivers or older friends and family members driving up your driveway straight for your front door.

Oh yes!.........the medical incident! My sister had a guy in his eighties go over a neighbors retaining wall, fly over the street, and directly into her foundation below the living room windows, two feet of car in her basement.

An old toilet pipe in the basement saved most. The house was 1929, solid as a rock: ) and only a hairline crack formed in the living room plaster. It was a more than minor miracle, 20 years ago. All still intact : )