Concrete, asphalt or pavers

[Creamer]

Size and location of the replacement? Front of garage or a mile long road?

Good question! This is for in front of my garage and a parking area - approximately 3000 sq ft. I have a quarter mile long limestone driveway leading to it which does bring up an interesting point of tracking the fine limestone/gravel onto whatever surface I pick.

Eddie - I hear what you are saying about the asphalt as it does give some and the nice black surface is really good at melting off the ice and snow in the winter but the black does track into the house some.

The soil around here does have a lot of clay in it so it does move and of course the frost goes deeper under a driveway than on grass - more frost depth equals more swelling.

 

[EddieWalker]

Are you sure you have asphalt and not oil sand? I never heard of asphalt tracking, but oil sand does. It also falls apart fairly quickly.

 

[RNeumann]

It sounds like you want a higher end look near the house but are concerned about the concrete or pavers getting munched by the snow plow. The dream would be adding heating under the parts of the 3000sf that need snow removal. The next would be special blade designed to prevent damage.
Pavers with the proper base will outlast concrete. I've had/seen spalling issues with concrete so that would be my third choice.

Choices in order-
Pavers with heater
Pavers with special plow blade
Asphalt
Concrete

 

[Billrog]

If you go with asphalt follow Eddie's advice and use commercial grade hyw. specs. which is 4" compacted rather than 2" and has larger aggregate in it.
With concrete exposed aggregate will not get marked up when plowing.

 

[Creamer]

If you go with asphalt follow Eddie's advice and use commercial grade hyw. specs. which is 4" compacted rather than 2" and has larger aggregate in it.
With concrete exposed aggregate will not get marked up when plowing.

Definitely agree that no matter what material it is going to have a solid well drained base under it - which is not what I have today. I appreciate the comments even though it is obvious that there are different grades of asphalt mix or concrete mix I wasn't thinking like that. I will find out the different grades - a good friend of mine is the county highway superintendent.

What do you mean by "With concrete exposed aggregate will not get marked up when plowing?" Normally there is no large aggregate exposed.

 

[Creamer]

It sounds like you want a higher end look near the house but are concerned about the concrete or pavers getting munched by the snow plow. The dream would be adding heating under the parts of the 3000sf that need snow removal. The next would be special blade designed to prevent damage.
Pavers with the proper base will outlast concrete. I've had/seen spalling issues with concrete so that would be my third choice.

Choices in order-
Pavers with heater
Pavers with special plow blade
Asphalt
Concrete

I definitely want to upgrade the look but a very nice asphalt would certainly be an upgrade - still if there is something with less maintenance required and a different look I am all for it.

I had an industrial parking lot redone last year with 5" concrete and there were spots of spalling. I am not very happy as it spalled within a couple of months. The contractor and the concrete company said it was because of salt. I am not buying it - there are spots that spalled badly and others that did not spall at all. No salt was spread on it but I am sure there was plenty of salt dropping off of vehicles and yet some parking spots were badly spalled and others were not. They patched it with some patching material and it looks like exactly that a patch job which wasn't why I had all ripped out and replaced.

 

[Streetcar]

Spalling of concrete is almost always a finishing and curing issue. Either too much water was used or the water was allowed to evaporate from the curing concrete too quick

 

[Billrog]

I don't have any good pics. of exposed concrete but this is mine after 25 years. 3/8" aggregated is in the mix. and I used 4,400 psi cement water proof to resist salt.

Maybe can get a better look next to the guy in the pics. feet.

 

[Creamer]

I don't have any good pics. of exposed concrete but this is mine after 25 years. 3/8" aggregated is in the mix. and I used 4,400 psi cement water proof to resist salt.
View attachment 520696
Maybe can get a better look next to the guy in the pics. feet.
View attachment 520697

Thanks. The pics help!

 

[newbury]

Our first time with asphalt lasted 15 years. We just added a layer it will probably last more than 20 years. We have about 700 feet of driveway and it was almost 20k the second time

I'm very interested in that project. How many square feet?

I've about 8,000 sq feet of my asphalt. I've also got a concrete drive off that which is about 150' long by 12' wide.

the red line is the approximate boundaries of the asphalt.

It's been cracking since WAY before we bought it and I'm planning on replacement, but we figured it would be partially dug up before we did it, and it was this summer. It's about a 4" layer.

They've been redoing the roads around here and lot's of "new" asphalt driveways sprung up where they did it. I'm hoping that if the contractor already has the equipment and crew out in front of my house I can get a good price on redoing the whole thing.