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Facing some hard zoning challenges in the the Village of Volente and the City of Austin, we turned to a local engineering company in Round Rock to help us come up with some alternatives to the cities new impervious cover requirements.

Custom Homes

Masters Touch Custom Homes was faced with what seemed to be zoning requirements that were to strict for our already approved lots. We owned 4 lots in the Village of Volente, three were vacant and one we built on right after closing. During the Build process of home #1 we were told by the city officals that the Village has just adopted new zoning requirements. They told us that we had to follow the 20% impervious cover guidlines. ( Needless to say our lot was only 7200 sq ft and they were now only going to allow us to cover with Pervious materials 1440 sq ft)

Our new engineering firm proposed using a concrete that was pervious. Their proposal stated that if we can use this concrete in-lieu of standard concrete we would not have to count the square footage of the driveway against us.

Eco Creto was developed in Mexico to allow their streets to act as a network of underground drains.

This concrete is very special. You first start out with normal Portland Cement and aggregate mixed together without water. Now instead of mixing water the local concrete companies mix special liquid (Onsite) (sometype of polymer additive) to the dry concrete mix. Once this reaction takes places you only have about one to two hours to lay the material.

Once this material is hardened you reach a 3000 psi compression strength within 24hrs. You reach 5000 psi after day 28. This data was collected by the University of Texas at Austin. See link for report.

http://www.ecocreto.com/Techdata/UTTESTRE.PDF

Once this material is finished the resulting texture is that of a Rice Crispy Treat. The small aggregate bonds together with the cement/polymer mixture causing voids to be left between the rocks.

The exposed surface of the driveway now acts like a sponge and allows the water to pass right through to the gravel base below.

This product can be used as a French Drain as well. You local engineer will need to calculate the amount of drain rock under the concrete to allow for this type of application.

Visit Eco Creto website for more info

http://www.ecocreto.com/home.html#