The (Mostly) Sealed Driveway

Over Labor Day weekend we sealed most of the driveway. The street construction we’ve been waiting for has been going so slowly (typical right?). They’ve done a little bit but they have such a long way to go. Most of the work done so far has been on streets near us. They are nowhere near repaving or adding the promised curbing. We realized it’s probably going to be true Fall before we see any real progress around here and we didn’t want to risk fighting the weather and our schedules to do the whole driveway later. Driveway sealant requires warm weather. So we went ahead and sealed most of it over the long holiday weekend.

We’ve had a couple of really hard winters and it’s done a number on our driveway (and the roads too!). We’ve had a ton of cracks that we filled with deep crack filler and then sealed everything. The final product is definitely not perfect, we worked on it over two days because it’s hard to juggle crazy work schedules, a toddler and a big project like this right now. With the stops and starts and crack filler we definitely have a lot of lines, but the important thing is that it’s protected.

Really the hardest part was just prepping the driveway. Pushing back grass and weeds and dirt runoff. Blowing and sweeping off tons of pebbles and grit. Hosing off dirt the blower and broom can’t get. We spent most of the first day just cleaning/prepping the driveway and filling in the cracks (crack filler has to dry for 24 hours before sealing it).

Down at the end of the driveway we left about 3 feet of driveway unsealed. During the construction on streets near us, everyone seems to have lost about 3-4 feet of their driveways to the construction (and then it’s replaced), so we didn’t want to waste the sealant. We still have 1 more tub of sealant leftover for when the construction is over, we can blend everything together and maybe even fill in a few cracks that could use one more coat. I think it’s a lot easier than take an hour off on a warm afternoon in late September than trying to take a whole day to do the whole thing.