Built to Last.
Paved to Impress.

A properly installed residential driveway should give you 15 to 20 years. Commercial lots run 15 to 25, depending on traffic.

What decides it isn't the asphalt on top — it's the base and subgrade underneath. A thick surface over a bad base fails early. A correct base with proper drainage is what gets you to twenty years.

Georgia's red clay is expansive soil — it swells when wet and shrinks when dry. That movement transfers straight up into whatever sits on it.

The result is cracking that looks like a surface problem but isn't. You can seal it, patch it, or overlay it, and it comes back, because the ground underneath is still moving.

That's why we spend time on drainage, base construction, and digging out soft spots first. It's the least visible part of the job and the part that decides everything.

The line is whether the damage is on the surface or in the structure.

An overlay works when the pavement is structurally sound and the problems are surface-level — oxidation, graying, minor cracking, localized rutting, drainage still working.

You need full replacement when there's widespread interconnected cracking in the wheel paths, potholes through to the base, or the grade and drainage need correcting.

Georgia DOT puts it plainly: widespread wheel-path cracking is evidence of inadequate structural strength, and overlaying it isn't cost-effective. So if someone offers to overlay a lot that's alligatored across the driving lanes, you'll be paying twice.

An overlay generally runs around half the cost of replacement — worth finding out which you actually need.

Worth it in specific circumstances, oversold everywhere else. The honest version:

What it does: protects against UV oxidation, water, and oil or fuel spills, and restores the black finish. On a regular schedule it's a small fraction of resurfacing cost.

What it does not do: anything structural. It protects roughly the top 1/16 of an inch. It won't fix alligator cracking, potholes, or a failing base — and on pavement that's already gone, it peels and flakes and looks worse than before.

You'll see companies claim sealcoating "triples the life" of pavement. There's no research behind that. The sealcoating industry's own trade association doesn't make that claim — what they publish is life-cycle cost, where a maintained commercial lot can run roughly a quarter of a neglected one over twelve years.

If your pavement is sound, sealing every two to three years is good economics. If it isn't, we'll tell you.

Be careful. The BBB and Consumer Reports both flag door-to-door driveway sealing as a recurring scam pattern. The tells are claiming urgent damage you can't see, leftover material from a job down the street, and pressure to decide right now.

The usual outcome is a thin coat of something diluted that looks fine for a month and washes off by the next season.

Before anyone seals your driveway, ask three things: what product are you using, are you insured, and can I have that in writing. Anyone legitimate answers all three without hesitating.

A significant one, and most people have never been told there's a choice.

According to the USGS, coal-tar-based sealer contains roughly 1,000 times more PAHs than asphalt-emulsion sealer. House dust in homes next to coal-tar-sealed pavement showed about 25 times higher PAH levels, and small children in those homes ingest several times more PAHs from dust than from their food.

It's banned in Washington, Minnesota, New York, Maine, Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC, all of Canada, and over a hundred local jurisdictions.

It's still legal in Georgia. So it's worth asking any contractor which one they're spraying — especially with kids, pets, or a lot beside a school, daycare, or playground.

General guidance for new asphalt:

• Foot traffic: about 24 hours
• Passenger vehicles: 48 to 72 hours
• Heavy or concentrated loads — RVs, dumpsters, trailer jacks, kickstands: 30 days

Full hardening continues for six to twelve months. In Georgia summers asphalt stays soft longer, so point loads leave marks well past the first week — a trailer jack on a hot August afternoon sinks into a driveway that feels perfectly solid underfoot.

For sealcoating it's shorter: foot traffic in about 24 hours, vehicles in 24 to 48, no rain in that window.

Paving: March through November is workable, April through October ideal. Georgia DOT's minimums depend on lift thickness — a two-inch lift only needs 45°F — so winter paving is possible, just weather-dependent.

Sealcoating: narrower, roughly late April to early October. It needs 50°F and rising sustained over 24 hours, so overnight lows are the constraint, not the afternoon high. Summer thunderstorms are the other complication.

Crack sealing: spring and fall — March to May, October to November. Cracks need to be mid-range in their opening cycle for a proper fill.

Yes — and this is the maintenance with the strongest evidence behind it.

The Asphalt Institute states that most pavement distress traces back to water getting into the pavement structure, and keeping water out stops or delays the majority of failures. Or more bluntly: cracks become potholes, and potholes become craters.

Water through a crack reaches the base, softens it, and destroys its load-bearing capacity. In Georgia clay that's the main way driveways and lots die.

• Hairline (under 1/8"): too fine to seal — handled by surface treatment
• 1/8" to 3/4": the sweet spot for routing and sealing
• Over 3/4": needs a heavier fill material
• Interconnected cracking in wheel paths: structural, not a sealing job

Set by total space count, and legally binding:

• 1–25 spaces → 1 accessible
• 26–50 → 2  ·  51–75 → 3  ·  76–100 → 4
• 101–150 → 5  ·  151–200 → 6  ·  201–300 → 7
• 301–400 → 8  ·  401–500 → 9
• 501–1,000 → 2% of total
• 1,001+ → 20, plus 1 per 100 over 1,000

At least one of every six accessible spaces must be van accessible — either a 132-inch space with a 60-inch aisle, or a 96-inch space with a 96-inch aisle, with 98 inches of vertical clearance and signage at least 60 inches up.

With standard traffic paint, figure one to two years in a busy commercial lot, two to three in lighter traffic. Thermoplastic lasts three to eight years at a higher upfront cost.

Restriping usually follows sealcoating, since the sealer covers existing lines. Doing both together saves a mobilization.

Residential driveway — 4 inches compacted full-depth, or 3 inches over 4 inches of aggregate base.

Light-duty commercial — 4.5 inches full-depth, or 3 inches over 6 inches of base.

Heavy-duty commercial — up to 7.5 inches full-depth, or 6 inches over 3 inches of base, for truck traffic and loading areas.

Drainage needs at least 2% slope. Soft spots in the subgrade need digging out and replacing, not paving over — that's where corners get cut, because nobody can see it once the asphalt is down.