Author Topic: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself  (Read 6506 times)

aceyou

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Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« on: July 05, 2015, 07:52:07 PM »

On the lower end of the badassity scale, but I resurfaced the driveway this weekend. 

Friday: Powerwashed driveway
Saturday: filled cracks
Sunday: applied 25 gallons of a "3 year" quality tar to the driveway. 

Cost: $100

I love the way a driveway looks right after it's gotten a new coat, so clean looking! 

Had it priced out, it would have been $250 to hire it out, and the quality of work would have likely been lower, based on what I've seen from my neighbors who've hired it out. 

[attachment deleted by admin]

Softwaredude

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #1 on: July 05, 2015, 09:15:19 PM »
Awesome job! Having hired out folks do this previously, I can say that you are better than the "professional" firm I am using. They don't even fill the cracks, if you ask them 'it cannot be done, you need a new driveway' is the answer :) I am doing this myself next year.

Mrs.LC

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2015, 09:42:02 PM »
Thank you for taking care of your driveway! It drives me crazy when I see people that ignore their driveways for years and then need to replace the whole thing for lots more $$ than the maintenance would have been. After they replace it they still don't take care of it and the cycle starts again.

Jack

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #3 on: July 05, 2015, 10:16:15 PM »
Nice pic. You live in Australia, I presume?

In my area we use concrete for driveways, which is a lot less DIY-friendly. : (

aceyou

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2015, 06:25:25 AM »
I live in Michigan.  It's about a 50/50 split between people who have asphalt and concrete around here. 

And in regards to the companies that you hire out, I have a theory that the company that does our neighborhood actually profits more by doing a bad job.  If they use low quality tar and do a cursory job, not only does it cost them less in materials/labor, but you need to get it redone faster, so they earn your business again sooner.  No thanks.

TrulyStashin

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #5 on: July 06, 2015, 07:36:08 AM »
I need to do this but I have a few damaged areas where the driveway meets the street (snow plow damage).   The layers of asphalt are exposed and on one spot the gravel bed is peeking through.  Any tips/ ideas on how to patch this?  A few years ago, I bought loose asphalt and a tamper and did it by hand.  It didn't patch very well.   Has anyone gotten better results using a heavy rolling tamping machine?


Jack

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2015, 07:46:58 AM »
I live in Michigan.

Then why does your pic look like it was taken in the southern hemisphere? ; )

aceyou

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #7 on: July 06, 2015, 09:43:21 AM »
Now that, Jack, is a very good question:)  It's actually really grinding me, I take the pictures, I email them to myself, they are rightside up.  I post them to MMM and 70% of the time they are upside down.  Grrrr!!!!

Sam E

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #8 on: July 06, 2015, 10:39:22 AM »
Now that, Jack, is a very good question:)  It's actually really grinding me, I take the pictures, I email them to myself, they are rightside up.  I post them to MMM and 70% of the time they are upside down.  Grrrr!!!!

That means 70% of the time you're holding your phone upside down. The phone records which position is "up" in the data of the file (EXIF data) and your computer, phone, and e-mail interpret it correctly and show you a right-side-up photo. My guess is that this forum either ignores or strips the EXIF data from the picture, causing you to see the "true" state of the picture, which is that it was taken physically upside down and simply being automatically flipped in the background by your devices the whole time.

aceyou

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #9 on: July 06, 2015, 11:11:49 AM »
I like being a member on a forum where the majority of the posters are a lot smarter than me.  Thanks Sam, I'll test this out later and see if that corrects it....although hopefully within a month I'll be rid of that phone and operating on a Republic Wireless phone. 

aceyou

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #10 on: July 06, 2015, 11:13:11 AM »
oooh, one more question than.  When i post the picture, it blows up so big you can only see about 10% of it at a time.  How can I change the resolution on the phone so that won't happen when I post it? 

Sam E

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #11 on: July 06, 2015, 11:26:24 AM »
oooh, one more question than.  When i post the picture, it blows up so big you can only see about 10% of it at a time.  How can I change the resolution on the phone so that won't happen when I post it?

The specifics will depend on your phone, but if you open the camera settings menu where you'd normally adjust the flash settings and such there should be a quality or resolution menu that will let you pick. It's usually set to the highest widescreen resolution by default, which is HUGE, so setting that way lower will help.

Jack

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #12 on: July 06, 2015, 02:43:28 PM »
oooh, one more question than.  When i post the picture, it blows up so big you can only see about 10% of it at a time.  How can I change the resolution on the phone so that won't happen when I post it?

Don't. Unless your phone is running out of memory, using the highest resolution (and best "quality" settings) possible maintains maximum flexibility for use of the image in the future (e.g. you can crop out a small part of it while maintaining acceptable quality, you can have a shop print it in large format to hang on a wall, etc.). Even if you don't normally do those things, the last thing you want to do is to be fiddling with the settings trying to turn the resolution up to catch that once-in-a-lifetime snapshot of a Bigfoot sighting!

Instead, what you should do is use the "resize" or "scale" tool in any image editing software (even Microsoft Paint) to make a low-resolution copy after the fact, and then post that to the internet. Make sure to "save as," not "save," so you don't obliterate the high-res original. Sizes similar to 800x600 or 1024x768 are usually appropriate. (Adjust to maintain the original aspect ratio: if your original image is 16:9 widescreen, for example, you might use 1152×648 instead.)

aceyou

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #13 on: July 06, 2015, 04:52:53 PM »
Thanks to both of you.  I'll try to just rescale it like you suggested. 

Elderwood17

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #14 on: July 07, 2015, 02:04:11 PM »
Nice job!  I was quoted $650 recently for ours, and it looks like it may be smaller!

Question - what do you use to fill the cracks?

bzzzt

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #15 on: July 07, 2015, 10:24:11 PM »
Question - what do you use to fill the cracks?

They sell crack filler in a bottle.

FrugalKube

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #16 on: July 07, 2015, 10:33:53 PM »
I need to do this to a chunk of our driveway...

aceyou

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #17 on: July 08, 2015, 11:44:02 AM »
Question - what do you use to fill the cracks?

They sell crack filler in a bottle.

Yep.  It's a one gallon bottle and it costs about $10 at Lowes.  I bought two of them but will be returning one because one was enough for me. 

And for $650, I will volunteer my services!  This is not a difficult job, you can definitely do it yourself.  Just find a few hot days in a row with no rain in the forecast so that it can dry nicely. 


For materials, you need the following:

1.  pressure washer to  clean the driveway off. 
2.  crack filler (i used one gallon, but it depends on the number of large cracks)
3.  Several 5 gallon buckets of tar (I used 4 1/2 buckets to cover mine)
4.  You will need a squeegee if you don't have one.  Here's a link to something that looks like mine:  http://www.amazon.com/DQB-Industries-11916-Driveway-Squeegee/dp/B00P8E0ZR6/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1436377237&sr=8-11&keywords=driveway+squeegee

That's really it, it's simple.  Good luck!

Sam E

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #18 on: July 09, 2015, 06:38:28 AM »
Question - what do you use to fill the cracks?

They sell crack filler in a bottle.

Yep.  It's a one gallon bottle and it costs about $10 at Lowes.  I bought two of them but will be returning one because one was enough for me. 

And for $650, I will volunteer my services!  This is not a difficult job, you can definitely do it yourself.  Just find a few hot days in a row with no rain in the forecast so that it can dry nicely. 


For materials, you need the following:

1.  pressure washer to  clean the driveway off. 
2.  crack filler (i used one gallon, but it depends on the number of large cracks)
3.  Several 5 gallon buckets of tar (I used 4 1/2 buckets to cover mine)
4.  You will need a squeegee if you don't have one.  Here's a link to something that looks like mine:  http://www.amazon.com/DQB-Industries-11916-Driveway-Squeegee/dp/B00P8E0ZR6/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1436377237&sr=8-11&keywords=driveway+squeegee

That's really it, it's simple.  Good luck!

Where do you go to just pick up several 5-gallon buckets of tar? You list it like it's nothing, but I don't think I've ever seen such a thing...

aceyou

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #19 on: July 09, 2015, 07:56:37 AM »
Fair enough, I kind of glossed over that major detail pretty quickly:)  Go to Lowes, they have half an isle dedicated to driveway sealing. 

Here's a link to give you an idea of what to look for:  http://www.lowes.com/Search=jet+coat?storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10051&N=0&newSearch=true&Ntt=jet+coat

When you get there you will see several choices, based on the number of years it is supposed to last...1 year, 3 year, 5..7...10, etc.  Your job at this point is to start at all the buckets and second guess your decision for AT LEAST 10 minutes or so (because let's face it, they all look the same to us, except some are way more expensive), at least that's what I've done each time. 

The first time I resealed the driveway I did a 7 year tar.  I got about 3 years out of it.  However, I'll point out that my driveway must withstand crappy michigan winters, plus for 2 years I paid to have the driveway plowed (before I found MMM), so the blade was messing with the surface.  This year I went with the 3 year quality and we will see how it goes.  My hope is that I can use a 3 year quality and resurface it every other year. 

Hope that helps. 

NNate

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #20 on: July 09, 2015, 01:15:31 PM »
I used the 10 year stuff last time I resurfaced (2 years ago) and it already looks like I need to resurface again. I won't be spending that extra $ next time.

aceyou

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Re: Resurfaced the Driveway Myself
« Reply #21 on: July 09, 2015, 04:04:35 PM »
Yeah, I think it's better to just save the money, buy the cheaper stuff, and do it every couple years.  It's not like it takes that long anyway.