A-Pak Paving Resurfaces Our Asphalt Driveway

Total cost: $2,600

A-Pak Paving, based out of Haymarket, VA resurfaced the asphalt driveway of our home located in Sterling, VA on April 18, 2015. The crew seemed well organized, the equipment in good condition and the work was performed fairly quickly and efficiently. I was especially impressed by the crew's attention to detail, their machinery operating skills and their manual labor strength and endurance on this hot and humid day. They were also careful not to damage our siding and the plantings along our driveway. We are very pleased with the results! That said, this being our first experience with asphalt paving, what do you think of the job done by A-Pak Paving?

One of the best comments:

I recently watched you're video about the installation and sealcoating of you're asphalt driveway. Just thought I'd reach out to you with some friendly input. I've been in the asphalt pavement business for over 10 years so I've got a bit of knowledge. Firstly the reason the asphalt is so coarse is because it appears to be a material referred to as 3TS. A lot of contractors will use this mix because it saves them money. Normally for a new driveway installation or a dig out and repave you would start with a compacted and finely graded stone base and then you would use an asphalt binder for the initial base on top of the stone. The binder is an asphalt comprised of larger stones and ends up being extremely coarse, this layer should be applied at a minimum of 2". After the binder is laid and compacted with a roller then the final layer of extremely fine asphalt should be applied on top of it at 1 1/2 to 2" and then rolled again. Instead of doing this a lot of contractors opt to install 3TS asphalt which is a mix of large and small stone which they do for 2 reasons. First instead of having to do 2 steps they can do one step using the same material for the whole job and second because instead of giving you a 4" driveway they can normally cheat the homeowner and lay down 2-3" of blacktop and line their pockets. As for the sealcoating of the driveway the best tip I can give you is to squeegee the sealcoat on in a giant U shape to ensure even coverage and to make sure you let sealer flow over the sides of the driveway because the first spots to usually give out are the unsealed edges. Hope this helps!