Old asphalt driveways: Crack Filling / Sealing
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- čas přidán 4. 09. 2013
- Keeping an old asphalt driveway sealed can extend its life, even when it is full of cracks! Bob's 2-step method will help extend driveway life. Begin by choosing a string of dry days when it is in the 70's and won't get too cold at night, usually the month of September provides perfect weather in the Northeastern US. It is easier to seal a driveway before fall leaves begin to drop. Always begin sealing work as early as possible in the morning, before the sun heats up the asphalt and makes spreading sealer more difficult due to faster drying. #drivewaysealing #drivewaysealer #drivewaycracks
Bob has been a CZcamsr since 2010, sharing decades of landscaping and gardening experience in videos on BOBscaping (the "channel"). We grant you a nonexclusive, nontransferable, limited right to access, use and display the channel, provided that you comply fully with these Terms & Conditions. All data and information provided on BOBscaping is for informational and entertainment purposes only. BOBscaping makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of information on this site and will not be held liable for any errors or omissions in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. Use your discretion before making any decisions based on anything you have seen here. - Jak na to + styl
For crack filling it is easier to add the sand into the sealer and mix it with a drill. Start by mxing the sealer then put about half of it into another empty tub then put play sand into one of the half tubs- you can add a lot of sand, depending on how large the cracks are. About half and half sand and sealer is possible for big cracks, start with less and see what works best for you. Use a brush and squeegee, if you get some clumping drag it to the side and use a flat blade scraper to scrape the area after it sets up for an hour or so. Do this a day or two before sealing, deep filling may take several days to set fully.
Thanks for leaving the detailed comment, and great looking bike in your logo!
Great video!!
So a few months later how does it look ?
Since that video was recorded 9 years ago, going from memory, it held up well for a winter or two. As bad a shape as the driveway is in, with all the cracks, I really have to seal it every year without fail. Case in point: I skipped sealing it last year (2021) and the winter was brutal -- with lots of water running down those driveway ruts, and the repeated freeze/thaw. In fact, a couple areas I had patched with bagged asphalt turned into small potholes. So after filling those holes up this spring, I bought 6 buckets of driveway sealer, added a few coffee cans of playsand to each one before mixing it, and used a coarse bristled brush duct taped to an old broom handle, to 'paint' all the cracks. Due to shrinkage of the sealer each time it dried, even with the sand added to it, I repeated that process 3 or 4 times to fill them all the way, and also sealed the new asphalt patched areas. It should be good until next year! Here's a 2022 video of the crack filling process: czcams.com/video/PD7rHAT8ATw/video.html
@@bobscaping but did the customers mistake really disapeared ?
As an FYI... that's my old driveway! Most of the asphalt cracks are due to an lousy gravel base beneath it, that doesn't support weight or drain very well. One of the best asphalt driveway companies around here (and the highest priced) used to dig out 12 to 18 inches, then put in a layer of heavy limestone (6 inch diameter) and then add a second layer of 2b limestone, all rolled and compacted. Then the asphalt went on top. Those driveways lasted longer than any others!
NO SAND
When we sealed driveways commercially using a coal tar emulsion product, the supplier also sold us a grit (like sand) called BLACK BEAUTY. It blended in better with the color of the sealer, but came in back-breaking 80 lbs (36 kilograms) paper bags. It would still be my choice for mixing in with sealer to reduce shrinkage in cracks, as well as adding traction to a steep, slippery driveway.
Wear rubber gloves from Harbor Freight.
...along with old clothes and shoes!
WASTE 😢
THANKS for watching the BOBSCAPING channel on CZcams!
thanks I tried the sand and sealer today it worked great
Good reminder that I need to seal mine again now that we are coming into great driveway sealing weather during September.
Great video bud
+brandon olson Need to get back out there and do it again next summer, skipped this year.
Old guy having some fun with his go-pro
brandon Olson Even took it skeet shooting a few days ago... PULL!
brandon Olson Window-shopping for a drone that will haul the Go Pro now, heard they are coming out with their own model soon!
bobscaping id wait till november.... i think gopro developed their own. but there are alot out there that are pretty sweet ones called the airdog. also mouth mounts are wicked cool for pov i just picked up one called the mygo mouth mount
Very informative! Disregard all of the negative comments. It takes guts to put something out to help teach people things. The world will never fall short of arm chair quarterbacks! I do have a question. Some of the cracks I have a quite large. I saw another video on sealer "rope" that you can push down into the crack. You then heat it with a blow torch so that it expands into the crack. Once it's set, you then apply the sealant. Have you tried this? If so, how well did it work, and would you recommend it? Thank you!
Michael Hess Haven't tried the expandable rope you mention for asphalt cracks. For large asphalt cracks, melted tar is usually the choice of professionals in our area.
Ok. I'm just a DIY guy, so I don't have access to what the professionals use. I guess I'll just give it a whirl then. Thank you for the feedback. Happy Memorial Day!
Michael Hess We never owned a hot tar buggy either, but sometimes wished we did.
I sweep in quikset. Then brush and lightly mop excess.
+Bernd Rothemeyer Sounds like something worth trying, thanks!
Isn't the squeegee part used just to move and push the sealer around the driveway, and not so much as a option to the brush?
+Josh Washington Some asphalt sealing companies use the wider rubber-edged "noodles" to apply sealer and those don't even have a brush on the other side.
note to anyone who watches this: be careful who you take advice from. I commend you for posting this to help out home owners however as a sealcoat business owner I disagree with the information your putting out there and believe it attributes to false expectations on not only repair method processes but also the amount if time people are expecting it to take to make such repairs. the sealer is streaky and not uniform because you aren't working the material quick enough and those fatigue cracks your trying to repair are in repairable and will only get worse by by the season. waste of time waste of money. Call us and for about $199 it could be someone else's headache and done properly.
+Michael Mercer The other option would be to do nothing of course, in which case this old driveway would have given way a decade ago. Believe me when I say I wouldn't waste my time doing it if I didn't think it had a benefit.
Why didn"t you use gator patch?
coldfreshwater I am not familiar with that product but will have to look into it. After our latest 'nuclear winter' many of the cracks have re-opened of course, but I attribute most of that to an inadequate sub-base of stone (with good support and drainage) beneath the old driveway. A poor base also seems to cause the most problems with concrete driveways.
bobscaping gator patch should have been used... but the reason why your driveway is like that is because you have too much seal coat on it. not because of the quality. the asphalt will always expand and contract. sealcoat dose not
reason why your asphalt is cracking and there is so much alligator cracks is because of the bucket crap sealer your using!
What brand do you use?
I would attribute the cracks to an inadequate gravel base beneath the asphalt, same thing that causes most concrete driveway problems.
goosecouple During our many years of commercial driveway sealing we bought SEALMASTER in bulk from a local vendor. In the video I was trying a product from Home Depot for the first time, do not recall the name, but it was in the $17 per 5-gallon bucket price range.
No
isn't there an old song from the 60's that goes, "no no, no no..?"
NoNo. No. No
i think your 'No' key may be schtuck.. .
no sir. its not sir. I noticed your site is down. sir...there is a real technique to this profession. I don't know if you just taught yourself or...made it up or what but this...this sir, is blasphemy. I'm sorry. I mean you no disrespect but this is the worst DIY job I've ever seen with 8 seasons and thousands of jobs including DIYs. they are all bad but this...
... God bless you man.
Thanks for your comments! I will repeat my reply to your earlier comment below:
Technically speaking, the driveway has cracked to that extent for two reasons: 1) a poorly installed, inadequate gravel base underneath the asphalt and 2) heavy truck traffic for too many years. The real "fix" is to have the driveway replaced while ensuring that a good quality base is installed before the blacktop is spread.
Unfortunately it's videos like this that make homeowners think they can solve their problems by doing what this amateur is doing. No! Latexite with Black Beauty on top of it does not help! Good grief Bob!
Matt Bigos Thanks for your comments! That patch job actually held up pretty well through the first winter, but following last year's "snowmaggedon" the cracks reappeared, which I attribute to a poor gravel base under the asphalt far more than types of sealer used or application methods, ie the same "poor base" issue that cracks concrete. Fortunately "amateur" patch jobs like this one have saved us the major cost of repaving for over 15 years!
Based on my own experiences over nearly 30 years repairing my asphalt large driveway (which was already FAR from being new when I bought the place), and which for many years I did just about what is shown in this video (using retail sealcoat products and mixing in sand to 'fill' the alligator cracks), I found that those repairs seemed good initially, but had failed/opened up again within the year. The cracks were getting wider and also spreading/extending since water was getting into the cracks and freezing over the winter (and I was doing the crack filling in September so as to have the repairs be as fresh as possible over the winter).
I decided that all my old approach was doing was a very temporary cosmetic repair. After some investigation, I 'discovered' the "Pli-Stix" product, and laboriously melted it into all of the cracks that were wider than about 1/32".....the seal coat was still able to fill all the narrower cracks, at least until the eventually got wider). The cracks I had filled with Pli-Stix never bothered me again. The narrower cracks that eventually widened were subsequently filled with Pli-Stix. After a few years of such gradual crack filling, I have now gone about five years without having to use the Pli-Stix at all, and I just seal coat over the driveway every September. There has been no additional structural degradation to the driveway that I can observe.
My conclusions:
- Seal coat products that are just latex based are cheaper but do nothing to help rejuvenate the existing asphalt. More expensive seal coat products that are asphalt emulsion based seem to work much better and last longer.
- Any seal coat product has very low elasticity once dried, so as the asphalt drive expands and contracts in summer and winter, those 'filled' cracks that only have dried seal coat in them will just open up right away and the crumbled dried seal coat just drops to the bottom of the crack or erodes into the environment. And the seal coat does not really stick to the inner sides of the cracks very well.
- The Pli-Stix product is some sort of rubber compound that sticks (melts onto) the inner sides of the cracks, and it remains elastic over the changes of the seasons, and thus does a much better job of 'permanent' crack filling.
- If there are areas of the driveway that have a ton of cracks, or which have small loose pieces, I cut those areas out with the diamond blade on my circular saw, fill the resulting rectangular hole with instant concrete mix up to about 2" from the surface, and add water to make it cure. After curing, I apply a high quality cold-patch asphalt product (I usually use the Sakrete product) on top of the concrete substrate and firmly pack it using the tamping attachment on my electric hammer (I use a Bosch rotary hammer with the rotation turned off). I do this at least one month before the seal coating goes on, and the driveway in those areas stops being a problem and remains firm and stable, and looks good too.
- I no longer buy and apply my own seal coat. My large driveway takes up to twenty 5 gallon buckets, which is expensive to buy, a nuisance to haul from the store to my home, and takes me a full, very long day to properly apply. I found a local asphalt pavement contractor that does new drives and also does seal coating. Their quotation for doing the whole job is about the same as me buying the many buckets of better quality seal coat. They verify in their contract that they are putting down commercial grade asphalt emulsion seal coat, not just a cheap latex product. And in the bargain they put down their own hot-application crack filler on the most tiny cracks that do still open up (because they were too small for the Pli-Stix) before they apply the seal coat. My driveway has remained stable ever since, even though it of course gets older every year....I think I have finally hit on the best way to preserve the drive for as long as practically possible.