The house I bought (on Berkley St, for real) three years ago has an aging asphalt driveway. Every spring I use my leaf blower to get a lot of fine pebbles (almost coarse sand) off the driveway, which I assume is aggregate that has come out of the blacktop. There are cracks, and places that are showing through to the base layer, although there are no real potholes.
It looks like it might have been done the Macadam style which is halfway between paving and tar-and-chip.
I want it to be nice, but I wanted some options. Digging it up and repaving will likely be around $5-6k, and digging it up and doing poured concrete would be closer to $8k. While that doesn't sound like a huge number for an 8 x 140' driveway, I make about $35k per year and the property was only $87k.
Are there cheaper (and effective) other options to shure-up what's there and maybe hold things together a bit? Right now it's flat and smooth, but I have a feeling a couple more winters will destroy it and force me into the multi-thousand-dollar repair scenario. The car metaphor to describe what I'm thinking: Kinda like doing an oil change on an engine with a bearing knock. It's on borrowed time. I can skip the $20 oil change and end up replacing the engine next month for $1000, or I can throw $20 worth of 20w50 at it and hopefully defer the major repair until later.
Is there a $500 driveway option that might buy me a few more years before spending the big bucks?
In case it matters, no slope to speak of (maybe 6" elevation change) and it's straight.
If I added up the area of all that I've got paved here, it would be over a quarter acre, I'm sure. It's approaching 20 years old, and some of it is starting to show its age. So, while I have nothing constructive to add, I'm interested in hearing what others have to say about your situation. 
Crusher dust or decomposed granite is pretty popular for driveways and parking areas near me. Looks ok, is water permeable to a degree, fairly low dollar compared to bitumen/asphalt and concrete, fairly weed resistant.
Good thing about going that way is ever few years if need be you can just dump some more on top, smooth it out and repack if necessary. Draw backs would be the potential for grit being transferred from shoes etc into your house if you're not a shoes of at the door kinda guy
Given the comps in the area, not having a paved driveway would be a big hit to the resale value of the house. When I say "hit" I mean that it would probably reduce the value of the house by about the same as the cost of new pavement. So I would be spending $2000 on excavation and gravel to drop the value by $5000 as opposed to spending $5000 to break even. I also grew up with a stone driveway, and the raking and maintenance (and the spill into the yard) was nothing to joke about. It makes snow removal something that can never happen without three days of hardcore work in the spring to return the stone to the driveway.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
Yeah fair point, if you get snow, then totally forget my suggestion. Decomp can look really nice especially with some nice edging and packs down well so it's not as maintenance heavy as lose stone, but if it's not suitable for your application then it's not suitable.
My suggestion aside, I'll be interested to see what else gets thrown up, because I'll be looking to put hard standing in front of my new shed once it's built. At the moment, decomp granite and concrete are the two contenders.....
Yeah... so far my only thought was a tanker truck full of Gorrila Glue and a large broom.
If it's stable there's no need to pull it up to put another layer of mat on top. You could put a couple heavy layers of sealant on top for a short term spruce up, but it won't last or fix anything.
I'd say you're calling around for blacktop folks. Maybe look around your neighborhood and see if anyone else needs it and is willing to negotiate with you for a bulk discount?
Did you consider topping over what you've got?
Sealcoat may buy you a few years (and look really good at first)
FWIW, topping over that is not recommended. Any asphalt company will tell you no warranty.
But your usage is really light. Residential, no trucks or heavy stuff, straight no turns.
If it was me I'd consider it (if the price was good)
In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :
How good at scrounging things up are you?
I got this free. They were tearing up a road a 11 miles away. The truckers had to haul the load 23 miles and pay to dump it. I offered my driveway to dump it in and to sweeten the deal offered them each a case of their favorite beer.
My neighbor liked what they were dumping and offered to buy the beer if I could talk them into dumping 11 more truck loads in his yard.
total of 33 truck loads. The driveway is 120' X 30' about 15,000 paving bricks laid on edge. They were from 1903 on a main road into Minneapolis. I put them in place the summer of 1987. Yes, it took me the whole summer to lay them.
The great thing is my neighbor never really got into the job and when he went to sell his home he offered me the extra 11 loads.
Walkway to lake, retaing wall for raised gardens, and exit from boat house doors
My point is there are a lot of things surplus to some people. My yard guy got granite paving stones free. Just for hauling them across the street . He's not sure what he will use them for yet but there is enough for a 10x60 foot area.
It's probably worth getting a couple quotes to have a baseline. That way you know where you're starting from
Up here In Mass I got 2 quotes of $4500 to remove the old driveway, regrade and then extend it around the garage for a little over 1000 sq ft.
That included expanding the current drive to 42x20, extend it for a 12x20 along the garage, including fixing drainage issues and cutting away part of a hill to create the new section by the garage. That was with 12" RAP, then 2" base coat, and 1.5" top coat.
I can't remember where I heard this exactly, but just the other day I was being told about taking a pickup truck and getting loads of shingle strips - I guess it's some sort of left-overs from when they make shingles, they have these long, thin strips that aren't big enough to be a shingle or something? Then they'd take those strips and lay them out and the sun would basically melt the asphalt in the shingles into a driveway.
That might be an awful idea, but there was at least one other guy in the conversation who was nodding his head and said that he used to do that, too.
In reply to wae (Forum Supporter) :
Those are the keyway punch outs from 3-tab shingles. They are asphalt.
Ive done that, but you need to start with a roller. And they look pretty weird for a couple years.
Its generally only an option when you live near a shingle manufacturing plant.
dj06482
UltraDork
5/21/20 7:44 p.m.
My friend put down recycled asphalt down for a driveway and is pretty happy with it. He put up edging to contain it, but it packs down well and looks good. Only bummer is you can't pave over it.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
Does anyone do tar and chip anymore? It'll get a little messy in July sometimes, but should be cheaper than asphalt and I bet it could be applied right over what you have now.
What about a permeable "green" option? Have the old stuff removed and DIY the new driveway.
Here in Texas is a product called RAP.....recycled asphalt paving....that is the end result of county roads being 'shaved' to a predetermined depth to only be repaved anew. The skimmed material ends up in any of a number of places.....the county compound ....in large piles along rural roadways (under county jurisdiction)....and lastly the local "cement dirt stone gravel mulch emporium". All that being said I've been a subscriber to this product(for a few years now) .....which when applied has a tendency to 'flow' at least here in the Texas heat and thereby by taking a set(residual tar plus heat you get the rest). The final result is what appears to be a fine gravel driveway, but with minimal scatter/dust ......except for the 50 yr rainfall and you have to gather it back up.....but that's exercise right? YMMV....
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
Here's a few ideas. Pick and discard whatever.
watch for someone tearing up a worn concrete driveway. If the pieces are big enough. Put it together and use a contrasting colored dyed concrete to "glue" it together.
Another "solution" is finding the local version of Blue Stone. Put that on the driveway with sand or pebbles as a base
In reply to 759NRNG (Forum Partidario) :
Have a friend who did a driveway that way up in western MD.
I would call it an option if you can put a few inches on top of existing driveway. Key seems to be packing it down by driving over it lots immediately after drop in warmer months. I almost bet if you put some seal over it after a few months driving it would hold very very well.
I see ads for millings on a regular basis. They need to be rolled, but come out looking like asphalt. I would think sealer on top of the rolled millings would work pretty well.
Rons
Reader
5/22/20 12:46 a.m.
I'm usually against, very against overlaying, particularly in our region, but I gotta say your asphalt looks solid. The damage you see is from oxidation (from the sun) resulting in binder loss and subsequently agrregate loss (why you're sweeping gravel). Doesn't appear that it's cracked or pot holes compared to most of the drives and roads you see in PA. My advice? Hire a gypsy to lay down a thin coat for $800 and call it a day.
Free advice is worth what you paid for it though. Good luck.
SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:
Did you consider topping over what you've got?
Sealcoat may buy you a few years (and look really good at first)
I did, but I'm not a good judge of whether or not that is viable given the condition of the current driveway. As long as it isn't too thick, I'd be OK with it. Right now the driveway is level with the yard. If I lay 4", I'll have to do something where it meets up with the garage, and I'll be doing a lot of dirt/grass work to bring the yard up to grade. I'm told that if I don't, I'll just rip the edges of the asphalt off if I drive into the yard.
frenchyd said:
In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :
How good at scrounging things up are you?I got this free. They were tearing up a road a 11 miles away. The truckers had to haul the load 23 miles and pay to dump it. I offered my driveway to dump it in and to sweeten the deal offered them each a case of their favorite beer.
My neighbor liked what they were dumping and offered to buy the beer if I could talk them into dumping 11 more truck loads in his yard.
total of 33 truck loads. The driveway is 120' X 30' about 15,000 paving bricks laid on edge. They were from 1903 on a main road into Minneapolis. I put them in place the summer of 1987. Yes, it took me the whole summer to lay them.
The great thing is my neighbor never really got into the job and when he went to sell his home he offered me the extra 11 loads.
I'm pretty good at scrounging once I find the proper source. Free is great, but part of me looks at the amount of bent-over labor you have there and wonders if I'll spend more in chiropractic care than I would on a $5000 driveway
