Asphalt Driveway Repair in New Orleans, LA

Driveway Crack Repair

A crack is your driveway telling you water is already under it. Our soil moves, everybody in this city knows it, and a hairline gap you ignore in January can be a half inch wide by August once the clay swells and shrinks again.

Driveway crack repair starts with cleaning the channel out. Wire wheel or compressed air, until every bit of dirt, grass root and crumbling old filler is gone. Then hot rubberized sealant poured to full depth, not skimmed across the top like icing on a king cake. The cold caulk in a tube from the hardware store shrinks and peels away by the second summer, every time.

Wider than about three quarters of an inch, or branching into that alligator pattern? Then it's a patch. Asphalt driveway crack repair over a failed base buys you one season.

Asphalt Driveway Crack Repair

A crack is your driveway telling you water already found its way underneath. That matters more here than in most towns, because we're sitting on soft river clay that swells through an August downpour and shrinks back in a dry stretch, and every quarter inch of that movement telegraphs straight to the surface.

Here's how we handle it. Anything wider than about a quarter inch gets routed out with a crack saw so the sealant has clean, square walls to grab. Then we wire-wheel the grass, dirt and old crumbling filler out of the channel and blow it clean with compressed air. Hot rubberized sealant goes in at temperature and gets squeegeed flush. Cold pour out of a jug shrinks as it cures, sinks below grade and lets water right back in by the next spring, which is why so much asphalt driveway crack repair around Gentilly and Lakeview gets paid for twice.

What I won't do is seal alligator cracking and tell you it's fixed. That web of little blocks means the base under it has quit, and sealant on top is a Band-Aid on a broken leg. That section gets cut out and patched.

Most driveways are a morning. Heavy routing can push it to a full day. Stay off it a few hours in cool weather, longer in July when nothing cures in a hurry.

Linear feet of cracking, and how much of it needs routing rather than a quick clean, move an asphalt driveway repair cost more than anything else on the job.

Blacktop Driveway Repair

Same stuff, two names. Blacktop is what your grandmother called it, asphalt is what goes on the invoice, and both of them sit out there cooking in the Louisiana sun.

The real question in any blacktop driveway repair is whether the damage stopped at the surface or kept going into the base. Surface trouble I saw-cut square, tack the edges, fill with hot mix and compact it flat. Base trouble means the stone underneath shifted, usually because our clay went from soaked in a July downpour to bone dry ten days later, and fresh asphalt laid over that is lipstick on a pig. Plenty of asphalt driveway repair companies will feather a skim coat over a soft spot anyway. Holds through one hurricane season, then dips right back.

Small patch or a cold snap, I'll use Aquaphalt driveway repair material instead. Most driveway asphalt repair wraps in a day.

Driveway Hole Repair

A hole is hardly ever a surface problem. It's the base underneath waving a white flag, usually because our clay soil held water after a week of afternoon storms and the asphalt above it had nothing left to sit on. So proper driveway hole repair starts with a saw cut. We square the edges, dig out the soft stuff until we hit something that doesn't move, compact new limestone in, tack the vertical faces so the patch actually bonds, then lay hot mix in two inch lifts and roll each one.

Most single holes take a couple of hours. Skip the square cut and the tack, throw cold patch in a wet round hole, and it pops out by the next downpour.

For small holes where a hot mix truck makes no sense, aquaphalt driveway repair sets with water and takes traffic the same day.

Driveway Sealing Repair

Sealer is not paint, and it will not hold a failing slab together. Think of it as a raincoat: it keeps water and UV off the binder that holds your asphalt together, and that is all it does. So driveway sealing repair comes last on my list, after the patching is done and cured, usually a week or so on a fresh patch before I'll put anything over it.

Two thin coats beat one thick one every time. A thick coat skins over on top, stays soft underneath, and by August it's tracking into your garage looking like it came off a beignet tray.

Timing matters here more than most places. I want dry pavement, no rain in the forecast for a day, and enough cure time before that four o'clock thunderstorm rolls up the river.

Asphalt Driveway Edge Repair

Edges are where most driveways start losing the fight. There's nothing holding that outside inch in place, so every time you clip the shoulder backing out, or a delivery truck puts a wheel half off, the asphalt breaks away in chunks. Our rain doesn't help. A good afternoon downpour washes the dirt out from under the lip and the edge is left hanging over air.

Proper asphalt driveway edge repair means saw cutting back to solid material, usually eight to twelve inches, rebuilding the base with compacted limestone, then laying hot mix and rolling it. Then we backfill the shoulder so the new edge has something to lean on.

What kills a driveway asphalt repair at the edge is feathering. Thin asphalt tapered to nothing looks fine in April and crumbles by August.

Driveway Pavement Repair

Driveway pavement repair means the whole slab, not just the spot that bugs you every time you pull in. Before I patch anything I look at where the water goes, because our ground moves. That Gentilly clay swells through a wet March and shrinks in August, and asphalt sitting on a soft base fails the same way every time.

So real driveway asphalt repair starts underneath. If the base pumps mud when you press a boot into it, hot mix on top buys you a season. That's the step some asphalt driveway repair companies skip, because digging out and recompacting eight inches of stone takes hours and looks like nothing on paper.

Cold patch, the aquaphalt driveway repair type material, has its place on one isolated spot. For anything bigger I want hot mix and a roller.

Residential Asphalt Driveway Repair

Most of the residential asphalt driveway repair I do sits on ground that refuses to hold still. Our soil settles, live oak roots shove a slab of blacktop up like a rug in a hallway, and one wet spring in Lakeview or Gentilly puts a dip in a drive that was flat two years ago.

So the first thing I do at your house is walk it and work out whether the asphalt failed or the base under it did. That part matters. Plenty of asphalt driveway repair companies skip it because it adds an hour to the visit, then the low spot comes right back by August. If the stone underneath is soft, we cut it out, recompact, and lay hot mix in two-inch lifts.

A single driveway is usually one day. Keep the cars off it 24 to 48 hours in summer heat.

What the job involves

First thing I do is walk the drive with you and figure out whether we're fixing asphalt or fixing what's under it. In this city that matters. Between the clay, the water table and ground that keeps settling, half the failures I see aren't the asphalt's fault at all. The base gave up and the pavement just went along with it.

Once we know that, the work is straightforward. We saw cut clean square edges around the bad section, because feathered edges ravel by the second summer. We pull out the failed material, get down to the base, add and compact limestone where it's soft, then tack the vertical faces so the new mat actually bonds. Hot mix goes in, gets compacted in lifts, and rolls out flush with what's around it. Skip the tack coat and you've got a patch that lifts at the seam the first time an August afternoon hits and a downpour follows it.

Most residential asphalt driveway repair is a one day job. Bigger drives or ones needing base work can run two. Stay off it for a day, and keep the delivery truck off the fresh patch for a few days after that while it cures.

What moves your asphalt driveway repair cost is square footage, depth, and whether the base is sound. Straight asphalt driveway crack repair is a different animal than a full dig out.

What it costs

Nobody can quote an asphalt driveway repair over the phone without a few honest questions, and the answers move the number a lot.

Square footage is the easy part. Depth is where the real difference lives. If the top inch and a half has crumbled but the stone base underneath is still tight, we saw a clean edge, cut out the bad asphalt, tack the seam and lay hot mix. If the base is soft, and around here it often is because our soil moves and holds water like a sponge, we're digging deeper, hauling out mush, and putting in new stone before any blacktop goes down. Same hole from above, very different day of work.

For asphalt driveway crack repair, the number follows linear feet and how wide the cracks have opened. A dozen tight ones we can rout and fill with hot rubberized sealant in a morning. A driveway that's gone to alligator scales in the wheel paths is past sealing, and pretending otherwise just buys you a summer.

Access matters too. If we can't get the truck close, everything moves by hand.

Call us with the address and we'll come look and give you a real asphalt driveway repair cost, not a guess.

What I will tell you is that cold patch shoveled into a hole and tamped with a boot heel rarely survives its first hard August downpour.

Why choose us for this

The apron's crumbling where the tires turn in, that crack you noticed last summer is wider now, and you have exactly zero interest in becoming an expert on any of it. Fair enough. You want somebody to show up, fix it, sweep up and go, and not think about the drive again until your kid is old enough to park on it.

I've been patching and paving driveways across Orleans and Jefferson Parish for the best part of 19 years, so New Orleans Asphalt Paving here means working ground that sinks, shifts and holds water like it's on the payroll.

So here's what I won't do.

Change the number: The asphalt driveway repair cost I write down is what shows up on your invoice. If I cut into a soft spot and find the base has turned to soup, I stop and tell you before I spend another dollar of yours.

Start somebody else's job mid-drive: My crew finishes yours before the trucks go anywhere. No half-done apron sitting open through a week of afternoon storms.

Lean on you to sign today: The quote's good next week too. I don't do the price-expires-when-I-pull-off-your-street routine.

Leave the yard looking like Bourbon on Ash Wednesday: Millings hauled off, edges blown clean, tack kept off your concrete.

I'm not the cheapest quote you'll get. Cheap asphalt driveway crack repair is usually cold patch shoveled in and rolled flat with a truck tire, and it's back by August. The estimate costs you nothing and obligates you to nothing.

Frequently asked questions