Sealing the Driveway

The driveway before (from the spring) - light gray, worn and pitted

Sealing the driveway is one of those regular homeowner tasks we should have done last fall, but ran out of time to do.  This year it was a necessity before another winter did even more damage.  And we had some important repair work to do - a big crack in the backyard portion, a crumbled piece in front of the garage, and a sizable hole pitted next to the house foundation that was the cause of our hurricane Irene leak (which contributed to the flooding).

The driveway before

While the weather was still warm outside, the first thing we had to do was clean the driveway of everything.  Encroaching weeds, grass clippings that blew over, bits of gravel, sand, silt and mud leftover from all of our project deliveries.  It took a broom, shovel, hose and our super-powered gas blower to clear everything away.

We patched the big holes with asphalt, using a tamper to compact it into the space.  We filled the cracks with patch, and we sealed the whole driveway with sealant using a push broom.   It was time consuming but fairly easy - I think the worst part was stirring the buckets, even with a stirrer attachment on the drill it was hard work!  We totally underestimated the amount of driveway sealant we would need - we thought we would need 4 (5 gal) buckets.  However our driveway was so pitted and in desperate need of sealant that it just soaked it right up.  We ended up needing 10 buckets to cover the whole driveway!  Now our driveway is fairly large, but we were really surprised - and sealant isn’t cheap.   But 50 gallons of sealant is a lot cheaper than a new driveway!

The driveway after - dark gray and smoother

At least the smoother surface a lot more comfortable to walk on in bare feet.  And it looks a lot better - the dark gray makes the driveway look like new!

The driveway after