20 Year Old Asphalt Driveway

[OrangeGuy]

Yesterday, my wife and I purchased a 20 acre hobby farm with an 800' asphalt driveway that is twenty years-old. It is in decent shape and was just recently resealed. See attached picture.

My question is...How do I get it looking like new without replacing the whole driveway? There are some patches that need to be reworked otherwise it generally is just "weather-checked".

As always, any help will be appreciated.

OrangeGuy

 

[ToadHill]

Only thing I can think of is a coating of tar and a toping of small crushed stone. The local highway crews use this method to repair old but serviceable roads.

 

[PBinWA]

Only thing I can think of is a coating of tar and a toping of small crushed stone. The local highway crews use this method to repair old but serviceable roads.

If you google "chip seal" and "slurry seal" you will see two of these options.

Slurry seal might fill the cracks and voids better but it is not as tough as chip seal.

You could also just see if someone can do "skim coat" of asphalt on top of the existing asphalt. If the cracks aren't too big this might be good enough for a driveway and better than the ship or slurry seal.

Nothings going to be cheap though.

 

[SkunkWerX]

Best way to handle any large spots is get a paving contractor to do it right.
I have put in several asphalt driveways through the years and you can't beat the pros. For small stuff you can get crack filler and patcher compounds that work fine. The paving guys will tear out the old stuff, bring in hot asphalt, roll it in, and torch it so it adheres to the orginal material.

From the looks of it, since I can still see visible cracking, it appears it may need some more TLC, namely crack filler, and a nice thick coat of asphalt based sealer. if the previous owner had it done, he knew he was leaving and probably went low cost, probably a latex based sealer. The asphalt based sealers are heated in a truck, and sprayed on while hot, they tend to be much thicker, and do a great job filling small cracks and voids.

The basic premise of maintaining an asphalt surface is to keep water from getting in & under it. Patch holes, fill & seal the cracks, make the water run off, not down through an opening.

At some point you may need to pave over it, 800 feet at 10' wide = 8000 sq. ft. Not too bad (My current drive is about 6,000). Ask some local pavers what the going rate is per Sq. ft. to over-pave.

A 3" layer , then rolled in , will compress to about 2", that's what you'll want. Make sure they use a good size roller, not one of those little lightweight models.

 

[6sunset6]

If there are bad sections I have noticed that you cannot feather asphalt .
Actually asphalt is the name of the petroleum stuff. Tar comes from trees. And the name ,I think of the gravel/asphalt mix is Macadum or Hot mix or Cold mix. Anyway They cut it out and then replace the section at depth and roll it to butt the existing edges. The other thing I noticed about rollers is they like to use a smaller one . My guy had a medium size one and a smaller one and he said the smaller one had a higher ground pressure. I guess its the point contact of the roller and the weigh of the machine, Until you get to highway size machines. They roll it until the lines disappear.
The opinion on sealer is about 50% 50% . I have no opinion. I have 700 feet 11 years old in very good shape. I have a couple of cracks I patch in the spring. Try to catch them still open and dry. I think if I wanted a long term fix I would go with a go with 2" of fine hot mix. Expensive. Although long drivways are expensive no matter what you do.
The way these guy price is double the material cost and hot mix I just read is $56/ton for our local town. ahhh I used to know the coverage . Maybe someone knows.

 

[Western]

I agree with the guys that say get a contractor, heres why,
From the picture it appears like you have severe "gatoring" (cracks) these are not like a variable crack here and there, gatoring is usually caused by the breakdown of the substrate beneath the asphalt, to stop gatoring you have to address the substrate issue, Sealing with a Coal tar emulsion will rejuvinate the surface, but overtime wont "seal" those cracks since they are growing. an overlay will only temporaraly work because gatoring will "mirror into the new layer if the base is not corrected. If you go with a coal tar emulsion make sure the contractor mixes sand in it prior to spraying, we mix 20 bags silica sand in our 750 gallon sprayer, this adds longevity and some traction to the seal coat. Also it appears in the picture that this road has been "sprayed" before, from the overspray along the edges, could be the photo. You may be able to have a contractor pull it up, crush it, and remix it to save $$
It all boils down to what you want to look at and what its worth for you. at least get a local contractor to look see and tell you what he thinks, since he can stand on it and see it first hand. If you want to know more on sealing the cracks , try contacting a "Sealmaster" store they can answer lots of questions for you.

 

[6sunset6]

I need to look before I type. Tar can be coal tar as well not exactly trees.
Macadam was originally just stones with out a binder. Now used for asphalt pavement by some. Bituminous concrete is the actual technical term.
I think hot mix cubic yard is closer to 3000#.

 

[Toiyabe]

Agree with Western - that is aligator cracking, also known as fatigue cracking (there is also a low-temperature crack or possibly a construction joint towards the bottom of the photo).

There's no way to fix alligator cracking, short of grinding it off and starting over. You can't really seal it either. If it was caught earlier an overlay might have worked. As it worsens, the chunks will work loose and pull out, forming potholes.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that the driveway won't still do what it needs to do. On the plus side, the structure is already gone so there's nothing to worry about saving.

I would guess that the base layer is junk unless it has seen an awfull lot of heavy truck traffic. If you rebuild, make sure you put down some nice, clean gravel and daylight it out to the shoulders before putting down new asphalt concrete.

 

[Renze]

If it was my road, i wouldnt spend money to grind existing layers: Nothing beats the compaction of 20 years of heavy traffic. You can just go over it with a new layer of at least 3 inches thick, because what i guess from looking at your picture, is that the asphalt layer is just too thin to withstand time.
I dont see any large cracks or rutting so i guess the base is o.k.

Also, aged asphalt roads can get pretty bad from the freeze and thaw cyclus: Water in the cracks freezes overnight, pushing the cracks bigger. In the next morning sun it thaws, and freezes again in the night. This way you can see a "reasonable" asphalt road form lots of potholes in just 2 weeks of spring weather around the freezing point.

Over here, the municipality has hired a contractor to put asphalt over old concrete brick paver roads. the pavers are worn and crumbling, and the road was getting bumpy. They simply ran the asphalt paver over it and now the road is just sweeeeet

Also, is your road wide enough ? some old farm roads are too narrow for modern day equipment, so trucks and tractors allways drive their wide wheels on the edges of the road, crumbling and rutting the sides of the roads.
A road should be at least 2 feet wider than the vehicles, on each side, so that traffic isnt forced to drive in exactly the same tramline every time.

 

[OrangeGuy]

Wow! Thanks everybody! I know TBN is a tractor forum, but the "expert" advice on my driveway is great.

To the best of my knowledge, the driveway has never been used for farm or heavy equipment. At the edges the thickness appears to be 2 plus inches. There doesn't appear to be much of a crown so I don't know how thick it is in the middle. The worst is the first couple of hundred feet from the road (shown in picture). I may replace that section and use a "heavy" sealer on the rest.

Again, thanks for the wonderful response.

OrangeGuy