Get matched with top paving pros in Cedar Grove, WV

While paving a driveway is possible to do as a DIY project, we don’t recommend it. Hiring a driveway professional to pave it will ensure that your driveway looks neat and clean and lasts for years to come, and it will also prevent a weak driveway and, potentially, damage to your foundation. Paving a driveway requires heavy machinery, and while you can rent the equipment needed, operating it close to your garage slab or around your home’s foundation can crack it and lead to structural issues. 

Maintaining a driveway depends on the material your driveway is made of. Concrete and asphalt should be sealed to protect against water and freeze-thaw cycles. Cracks and expansion joints should be filled with a flexible polyurethane caulk or asphalt sealer. Before you apply a sealant to your driveway, consider pressure washing the surface. It will take off any loose sealant and any grime that might have caused a stain. Sealing over dirt and stains will trap it under the sealer.

If you live in colder climates, consider using sand rather than salt to de-ice. Sand helps melt the snow and ice without speeding up the freezing and unthawing process of your driveway, which helps prevent cracks from forming from the constant fluctuation of temperatures.

You can expect your asphalt pavement to last anywhere from 20 to 30 years, or 25 years on average. The life expectancy of your asphalt driveway depends on the climate, the amount of traffic, and how well you maintain it. While you can’t necessarily control some of these factors, you can control the amount of maintenance effort you put into your driveway. 

To prevent your asphalt from deteriorating prematurely, you should follow a good maintenance routine involving regular cleaning, reparation work, and resealing.

Asphalt and tarmac are not the same thing. Traditional tarmac, short for tarmacadam, uses tar as a binder to hold crushed stone together. Asphalt uses bitumen—a byproduct of crude oil—to bind aggregate. Though tarmac was once a go-to for roads, asphalt has become the modern standard. And these days, most surfaces referred to as “tarmac” are actually asphalt. So, while the names may overlap, the key distinction lies in the binder—tar for tarmac and bitumen for asphalt.