Asphalt driveway thickness

[bmwpower]

What's the typical driveway thickness? I guy just stopped over at the house and gave my wife an estimate. 5000 sq ft, 2-2-1/2" thick for $5000

Is this a good price?

It sounds too thin to me, but I'm not a driveway expert.

I got to let this guy know soon... one of those "we have extra asphalt..want a deal?" things.

 

[birdmayon]

I'm no expert either, but I'd think that's way too thin. Mine is probably 4" in the thinnest parts. Also don't know what the going price is, but w/out knowing the width and lenth of your drive it's hard to guess.

 

[Tscott]

I dont claim to know much about it, but I think it mostly depends on the stability of the foundation. My Mom did this, Same situation. We already had a good base of crushed concrete we were using as a driveway. When he put the asphalt in it was at 2-3 inches all the way around, more in some spots. The driveway is holding up pretty well, and it has been at least 3 years. Not sure what she paid though, sorry.

Tom

 

[mike944]

I did a quick search online, looks like 2-3 inches is normal for a driveway. I had a short street paved once, as part of a subdivision approval, and it was only 4" thick (2" binder coat & 2" topcoat) with a 10-12" base.

Your base thickness and preparation matters way more than the asphalt thickness. Kind of like prepping a concrete floor for epoxy. It's all in the prep......

http://www.askthebuilder.com/415_Asphalt_Driveways.shtml

As to price, $1/ft sounds pretty good. My friend Rob just had a driveway paveda couple of weeks ago (in Connecticut), and he paid $1.50 / ft

 

[mjribeiro]

We had ours done two years ago - 3" is good for a driveway. You can go thicker, but you would need to do it in different 'coats' or stages. My guy told me when he does road work, the town inspectors or DOT will be there to insure he doesn't put more than 3 inches in each layer. If you want super strong, do two layers, a base layer of I4 (higher stone content for strength), then a top coat of I5 (more sand, very small stones - very smooth)

 

[bmwpower]

Wow, thanks for the quick responses. It sounds like a big part is the prep, which I doubt this company is going to go to the extent mentioned in link above. The guy my wife talked to mention "compacting" the gravel driveway before coating, but didn't mention anything about putting down more gravel to get up to the 6" range.

The other thing that concerned me was that it's essentially left over asphalt from another job down the street. What's to say the asphalt isn't hot enough by the time they get to my house? I read something that like concrete, it has a limited time before it gets too "old" and cannot be used effectively.

On top of all this, I obviously won't be there when they pave the driveway. My experience has told me that you have to watch all contractors like hawks to get the right quality.

I think I'm gonna have to pass...

Thanks for all the help!

 

[snorvet]

2" asphalt over 6 or 8 inches compacted ca-6 limestone

 

[Ken P]

Is the driveway flat or are there any hills / slopes? If it is on a hill you'll need curbing of some kind to help hold it together.

 

[sharpshooter]

They just paved the street i live on and it wasnt even 3 inches thick, (lotsa traffic on it too) but as most have said there was a good foundation already there.

 

[Sundowner]

it's more than fine. esp if you have an existing gravel driveway that's already selttled in. you can't compare to a public road. those are designed to safely carry a 20,000lb wheel distributed over a 20" wide x 10" long load patch. unless you park a water tanker in your driveway - often - it will never matter for you.

 

[bgarrett]

one of those "we have extra asphalt..want a deal?" things.
__________________Thats exactly what scammers say

 

[ersatzs2]

I just got three estimates for my parking area. They were all 6" compacted gravel with 3" asphalt compacted to 2" For an extra $2500 one would do 2" of course asphalt base, then 2" of finish.

The advice I got from my building contractor is that the best asphalt finish is laid on a very hot day. Further, he said the best option is to lay the stone now, let it settle, heave, move through the winter, then pave in the summer. I think that's what I'll do.

On the other hand, $5K for 5000sf sounds like a killer deal, my bids were more like $6K for 1200sf.

I have heard the "we have leftover asphalt" story before. Not sure it if is ever authentic or not, but a friend who did it had good results.

 

[mjribeiro]

I paid 9k for 5000sq ft, but that included a tear out of the old, 1 tri axel full of QP, regrade, rolled, then 3in of new asphalt.

 

[ersatzs2]

I paid 9k for 5000sq ft, but that included a tear out of the old, 1 tri axel full of QP, regrade, rolled, then 3in of new asphalt.

Holy cow. I think I just live in a zip code where everyone triples the price. $5/sf is what I'm faced with so far...

 

[Kevin54]

2-3" is standard in our area but what I want to know is...how does the guy know he has extra when he hasn't even done the previous job yet, or is the guy before you getting shorted? Like bgarret stated..."that's what the scammers say" If he has extra, then tell him you'll only pay him $3000.00 because if he doesn't use it he is going to have to dump it anyways before it hardens in the trucks. So you would be doing him a favor instead of visa-versa.
We had a guy in our area a few years ago that worked for an asphalt company and always had the "extra". At one time he probably had 6-12 lawsuits against him. All Small Claims but the guy would never show up at court. Judgement was against him, but he didn't care as nothing was in his name. The largest suit against him was for almost 10g's. And almost everyone that had work done by him has had it torn out and redone. Get some references of his work and don't let him jack the price when it is all completed as a lot of them tend to do. A firm price is a firm price. Also no money should exchange hands until you are satisfied. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Kevin

 

[bmwpower]

I never ended up going with this guy. It looks like my neighbor went for it across the street. I'm going to stop over and take a look.

In any event, apparently he stopped over to my house again after I left for work yesterday and talked to my wife. He dropped the price to $4500. I still said no since I was at work 1-1/2 hours away and could not trust his prep.

Most of my driveway has stone that has settled in nicely, but still less than the 6" it looks like should be required. Also, since the garage was built, I have yet to get a final load of stone to finish the driveway in front of it. There are deep spots that are not stable and spots where there is no stone. With all this taken into account, I was afraid it wouldn't have been an ideal prep situation, especially if I wasn't there to see them prep.

FYI, this was a one day deal. *****.

 

[ersatzs2]

FYI, this was a one day deal. *****.

Here are some asphalt FAQs I just found. Confirms what I've heard about waiting for a very hot day to install. http://www.hotmix.org/driveways.php
I think I am going to just have the base gravel installed, then wait on the paving portion until say July...

 

[carguy123]

Why use asphalt at all and go thru all the ongoing maintenance hassles?

I am paying $2.50 a sq ft for 4" of concrete. The most expensive concrete bid I've had is $2.75