Driveway Paving in Seattle

Concrete is the default here and it is a reasonable one — it costs less than pavers, handles the climate well, and looks clean for a long time if it is jointed properly. Its weakness is that it will eventually crack, and a repair never blends. Pavers cost more up front but they flex with small ground movement rather than cracking, and a damaged or stained area lifts out and gets reset invisibly, which matters on a surface that gets oil dripped on it. Asphalt is the cheapest per square foot and the right answer on a long rural-style drive, but it needs resealing periodically and it softens in real heat. On a typical city lot we recommend pavers where the budget allows and concrete where it does not.

Because the driveway is functioning as a catchment and has nowhere to discharge. Most Seattle lots slope down from the street toward the house, so the drive collects both its own rainfall and whatever runs off the front garden, and delivers all of it to the lowest point — which is your garage threshold. If the original build had no drain there, or has one that has silted up, the water simply pools. The fix is usually a channel drain across the drive just short of the garage, piped to somewhere it can actually discharge, combined with regrading the last few feet so water reaches the drain rather than the door.

It depends entirely on which surface. A paver driveway is ready as soon as the jointing is compacted, usually the same day the last unit goes down, because nothing is curing. Poured concrete needs to gain strength before it takes a vehicle load — foot traffic comes first, vehicles considerably later, and driving on it early causes damage you cannot see until it shows up as a crack. Asphalt is walkable quickly but stays soft enough to scuff for a while, so tight turning on a hot day will mark it. We give you the specific timeline for your surface in writing rather than a rule of thumb, because weather changes it.

Sometimes, and it is always worth asking. If the base underneath is sound and the problem is purely surface — worn asphalt, tired paver colour, surface crazing on concrete — then an overlay or a lift-and-relay is a genuine saving. If the failure is structural, resurfacing is money spent on hiding a problem that will reappear through the new surface within two winters. The tell is usually differential movement: cracks with one side higher than the other, sections that rock, or dips along the wheel lines all say the base has failed. We will tell you which one you have before quoting either.