Asphalt Paving in New Orleans, LA

Hot Mix Asphalt

Hot mix asphalt is exactly what the name says. It leaves the plant somewhere north of 300 degrees, and from the second that truck tarps up, we're racing the thermometer. Get it down while it's hot, roll it while it's hot, or you've got a mat that never knits together and starts raveling into loose stone by the second summer.

That's why timing matters more than muscle on these jobs. We want the mix laid and compacted before it drops under about 185 degrees, which in January means early trucks and tight scheduling, and in July means keeping an eye on those 3 o'clock thunderstorms that show up like clockwork off the river. Rain on fresh mix is a redo, not a repair.

Most residential work here goes down as a two inch compacted surface course over a properly rolled base. Commercial lots usually want a binder lift underneath it.

Plenty of paving contractors will lay hot mix asphalt in a hurry. The rolling pattern behind the paver is where the difference actually lives.

Driveway Paving

A driveway here doesn't fail from the top down. It fails from the bottom up, because our ground is soft, wet clay that moves with the season, and a slab of asphalt is only ever as good as what's under it. So when we take on driveway paving Uptown or out in Gentilly, most of the day goes into what you'll never see again: stripping the old material, cutting the subgrade, and rolling in six to eight inches of stone base before a single shovel of the hot stuff comes off the truck.

On top of that I want two to three inches of compacted asphalt, sloped so water runs to the street instead of pooling by your garage door.

Edges are where cheap paving shows itself first. An unsupported edge crumbles under one wheel in a year, especially if a live oak root is quietly lifting it.

Most single drives are a one to two day job. Then give it three days before you park, and be gentle with the wheel in August, because fresh asphalt takes tire prints in that heat.

Asphalt Sealing

Sealer isn't paint, though plenty of folks treat it like it is. It's a thin coat of asphalt emulsion that keeps UV and standing water out of the binder holding your stone together. Skip it and the surface goes gray, then brittle, then it ravels into loose grit you'll track across the kitchen floor.

The order matters. Sweep it clean, prime the oil spots so the sealer actually sticks, fill every crack wider than a pencil with hot rubberized sealant, then lay two thin coats instead of one fat one. Thick coats peel. Fresh asphalt paving wants six months to a year of curing before its first seal, and after that, every two to three years in this sun.

Then we watch the radar. Asphalt sealing needs about 24 dry hours, and a July storm off the lake doesn't negotiate.

Roads Paving

Roads are a different animal from a driveway, and not just because there's more of them. A private road or a subdivision street carries garbage trucks, delivery vans and the occasional Amazon driver taking the corner like he's late for kickoff, so we build for the heaviest thing that will ever roll on it. That means a proper subgrade, usually eight inches of compacted stone base, then a binder course under the wearing course rather than one thin lift pretending to be two.

Crown and drainage matter more here than anywhere. Our soil moves, Gentilly and Lakeview know that better than most, and water that sits on a flat road will find the base and undo everything.

Most roads paving jobs we run in phases so residents always have a way in. A few hundred feet is typically two to three days of work.

What the job involves

Most of the work happens before a drop of asphalt shows up.

We cut and haul out whatever is failing, then look at what's underneath, which in Gentilly or Lakeview is usually soft clay that holds water like a soup bowl. That's the part cheap paving companies skip. We grade for drainage first, get the slope running away from your slab and toward the street or a drain, then lay and compact limestone base in lifts. Compaction is the whole ballgame. Skip it and you get birdbaths and alligator cracking inside two summers, no matter how pretty the surface looked in June.

Then the paving itself: tack coat on any existing edges, mat laid at a consistent depth, rolled hot while it's still workable. A residential drive is usually a one day job, a parking lot runs two or three depending on size and phasing.

Stay off it for a day or so, longer in August heat, and keep the pickup truck's wheels rolling instead of cranked in place for the first few weeks.

What it costs

Two driveways the same size on the same block can come back with very different numbers, and almost always it's what's underneath doing the talking. Square footage matters, sure. But so does whether we're overlaying decent old asphalt or tearing it out, how soft the ground is after decades of our soil doing what it does, whether a truck can back in or has to shuttle hot mix asphalt down a narrow side yard off Freret, and how much drainage work it takes to keep water from ponding where you park.

Tie-ins to the street, curb cuts, and hauling the old material off all move it too.

So call us with an address and we'll come measure and give you a real figure on your own drive, not a per-foot guess over the phone. That's the honest version of the cost to install asphalt driveway question.

And the cheapest bid you get usually saved its money on base prep, which is the one part you can't see and the first part that fails.

Why choose us for this

You've got a surface out front that's spidered, sinking at one corner, and holding a puddle for two days after every afternoon downpour. You don't want a hobby. You want it fixed and forgotten.

Here's what I won't do.

I won't quote a number on the phone and grow it on the invoice. If we open the base and find it's soft, you hear it before the paver moves, not after.

I won't start your drive and vanish onto a parking lot in Metairie for a week. Your job gets the crew until it's done.

I won't lean on you to sign today. New Orleans Asphalt Paving has been around longer than either of us; it'll wait a weekend.

I won't leave a ridge of loose mix against your neighbor's fence or ruts across your grass.

I'm not the cheapest of the paving contractors you'll call, and that's deliberate. Compaction and drainage take time, and time is where the low bid goes missing.

The estimate costs nothing and you owe me nothing after it. Nineteen years of this in New Orleans soil, and that part hasn't changed.

Frequently asked questions