Asphalt Driveway Cost?

[Midpack]

Our asphalt driveway is 30 years old, and it has a very high rounded concrete curb at the end. DW is tired of (sometimes) scraping the front of her car on the curb, and with a new car on the horizon, she's adamant we fix the curb - not unreasonable.

So we have a concrete guy lined up to cut down the curb, but we have to re-slope the end of the driveway too. But he only puts down concrete, he subs out asphalt.

We just got a quote based on removing the old asphalt, putting down aggregate and grading and then putting down new asphalt to 2½" after compacting (residential code thickness here). To do the whole 18x42 driveway they quoted $2700, to do the last 9x18 feet (as many in the neighborhood have done) they quoted $2200. I understand they have minimums to cover fixed costs, travel costs, etc. - but it sounds like they're deliberately quoting high on the smaller job to induce us to do the whole driveway. They might pave over the existing driveway at lower cost, but that remains to be seen, and I assume longevity will be far inferior if we do that.

I wish we had a concrete driveway, but that would cost at least twice as much from what I can gather, and one very casual estimate. And we'd have to stay off it for 2 weeks, vs 2-3 days for asphalt. We might put up with that if this was our forever home, but it's definitely not.

There seems to be wisdom/experience on almost any subject here. TIA if you can advise.

 

[braumeister]

I can only offer one data point. I had the asphalt driveway repaved in 2006. 10 ft wide by 300 ft long. They removed about half of it completely and replaced it. The rest was in decent condition so they just put about an inch of new on top of that. Paid $8,000. Entire job took about six hours, much to my amazement.

 

[Senator]

I do not think that price is too bad. I had had three driveways replaced. All complete tear outs and repaved.

One standard driveway, 2-cars wide, 50' long. $3K.

I also had two parking areas paved. One was $10K and one was $11K. The $10K is ~60 x 75' or so. The other was a bit larger with a 15' driveway x 100' long, plus a large parking area.

Make sure you know how thick they are doing it. 3" is what you want.

 

[Midpack]

I do not think that price is too bad. I had had three driveways replaced. All complete tear outs and repaved.

One standard driveway, 2-cars wide, 50' long. $3K.

I also had two parking areas paved. One was $10K and one was $11K. The $10K is ~60 x 75' or so. The other was a bit larger with a 15' driveway x 100' long, plus a large parking area.

Make sure you know how thick they are doing it. 3" is what you want.

They've quoted 2-1/2" compacted, and said that's code here for residential. They'll do more, though I don't know how I'd ever know the difference of 1/2".

 

[flintnational]

We had a new driveway paved in 2006. The aggregate was already in place. The asphalt and labor cost $7,000 IIRC. The driveway had some wide turn around areas but probably averaged 10' x 175'. We are in the Southeast.

FN

 

[Amethyst]

$11,000 this April to replace ~ 150 x 12 feet (wider, of course, in front of the garage and the turn-around area). Not all was completely replaced; just the decaying parts (27 years old). The rest was cleaned, scraped, and resurfaced.

While this was a big chunk of money, it was not out of line with the prices generally quoted by contractors I talked to. Understand, too, that this was the only contractor who consistently responded to calls and seemed really interested in the job. And I worked the phones hard on this one.

He will be getting our $500 next spring to sealcoat his work.

 

[ownyourfuture]

Nothing to add, but thank you for posting, as I'm contemplating the same time.

 

[ERD50]

Sounds good to me. Our driveway is... 4.869 x the size of yours, so don't complain. And your quotes are pretty close to mine per sq foot, and I'm having it all torn out, culvert replaced, and 3" asphalt. I decided against the metal edging, I'll update that thread when the work is done.

Concrete has a tendency to crack with the freezing weather we have .

-ERD50

 

[euro]

Our asphalt driveway is 30 years old, and it has a very high rounded concrete curb at the end. DW is tired of (sometimes) scraping the front of her car on the curb, and with a new car on the horizon, she's adamant we fix the curb - not unreasonable.

So we have a concrete guy lined up to cut down the curb, but we have to re-slope the end of the driveway too. But he only puts down concrete, he subs out asphalt.

We just got a quote based on removing the old asphalt, putting down aggregate and grading and then putting down new asphalt to 2½" after compacting (residential code thickness here). To do the whole 18x42 driveway they quoted $2700, to do the last 9x18 feet (as many in the neighborhood have done) they quoted $2200. I understand they have minimums to cover fixed costs, travel costs, etc. - but it sounds like they're deliberately quoting high on the smaller job to induce us to do the whole driveway. They might pave over the existing driveway at lower cost, but that remains to be seen, and I assume longevity will be far inferior if we do that.

I wish we had a concrete driveway, but that would cost at least twice as much from what I can gather, and one very casual estimate. And we'd have to stay off it for 2 weeks, vs 2-3 days for asphalt. We might put up with that if this was our forever home, but it's definitely not.

There seems to be wisdom/experience on almost any subject here. TIA if you can advise.

Given what you said about this not being your long term home, I'd just go with the cheapest option and call it a fix. Yes, they are probably trying to incentivize you toward doing the whole driveway, but it doesn't sound like that is what you need

 

[MooreBonds]

We just got a quote based on removing the old asphalt, putting down aggregate and grading and then putting down new asphalt to 2½" after compacting (residential code thickness here). To do the whole 18x42 driveway they quoted $2700, to do the last 9x18 feet (as many in the neighborhood have done) they quoted $2200. I understand they have minimums to cover fixed costs, travel costs, etc. - but it sounds like they're deliberately quoting high on the smaller job to induce us to do the whole driveway.

They will be using the same equipment, and likely same crew size to do the work regardless of how much area there is. And it likely won't take them that much longer to do a larger area, given all of the miscellaneous time/work/travel/etc. Add in asphalt costs of a tiny partial truckload, heating up the asphalt, etc., and I completely understand why it's substantially higher for a tiny patch vs the whole driveway.

Would it make you feel better if they used the $/sq ft on the smaller job and used that for your price on the larger job so you felt like they aren't "trying to induce you"?

 

[jollystomper]

We paid $5,400 3 years ago to repave a 200 foot long driveway that is a car wide for about half its length, with a turnaround area and 3 car width for about 50-60 feet in front of the house. feet. Another $800 to seal it the following year. It was not the cheapest estimate, the lowest bid we got was for $4,500. But they were the most professional in responding to our estimate request, and several neighbors who used them also vouched for their work. Since we plan to live here as long as we can it was worth paying for the quality, but if you intent to move I would agree with those to said to go with the cheapest option.