Asphalt & Gravel Driveways
Residential and private asphalt driveways, gravel and crush-and-run drives, sealcoating and patching. Long rural approaches and steep drives included.
- Asphalt driveway paving
- Driveway replacement
- Gravel and crush-and-run
- Sealcoating
- Patching
- Private and HOA roads
The company is named for paving and we have been doing it since 1978. A driveway is the version most people meet us through.
We pave residential drives, long rural approaches, farm and equestrian entrances, private roads and HOA lanes across Augusta, Evans, Martinez, Grovetown, Hephzibah, Aiken and North Augusta.
Asphalt, gravel, or concrete
We install all three, which means we have no stake in talking you into a particular one.
Asphalt is the usual answer for anything long. It costs less per foot than concrete, tolerates ground movement better, goes down fast, and can be resurfaced years later rather than removed and replaced. On a three-hundred-foot approach it is very often the only sensible option.
Gravel and crush-and-run is the least expensive to install and the most demanding to keep. Shaped properly, with a crown and somewhere for water to go, a crush-and-run drive will serve for years. Shaped badly, it washes out every spring.
Concrete lasts longest and needs least once it is down, which makes it a strong choice on shorter drives where the material cost is contained. We pour those too.
Tell us the length, the slope and what drives on it, and we will tell you what we would put there.
Drainage decides how long it lasts
An asphalt driveway is a wearing surface. What carries the vehicle is the base underneath it, and what destroys the base is water.
Water gets in through an unsealed edge, a crack, or ground alongside the drive that stays saturated. It washes fine material out of the base and leaves a void. The asphalt over that void flexes under load, then cracks in a pattern like alligator hide, then breaks up. Patching the hole leaves the void, so the hole comes back in the same place.
This is why we look at where water goes before quoting a driveway, and why we grade and drain the base ourselves rather than paving over somebody else’s preparation. On steep and rural drives it often means cross drains or a proper ditch line, and on gravel drives it almost always means putting a crown on it.
If your driveway has failed twice in the same spot, the surface is not the problem.
Long, steep and rural drives
A lot of our Aiken County work is drives that are nothing like a subdivision driveway — a quarter mile of approach, a slope that sheds water down its own length, a farm entrance that has to take a loaded truck, an equestrian property where the surface has to be sound in wet weather.
These are mostly a drainage and shaping problem with a surfacing step at the end. The material choice matters less than whether water runs across the drive or down it.
Maintenance
Sealcoating protects the surface from oxidation and water and keeps the colour. Wait until a new drive has cured — usually the following season — then every few years after.
Patching where a failure is isolated and the rest of the drive is sound. We cut out, rebuild the base locally and replace, rather than throwing material into a hole and rolling over it.
Resurfacing where the surface is widely worn but the base is still good.
Where the base has gone, we say so. An overlay on a failed base fails again, and we would rather not sell you the same driveway twice.
Living with a new asphalt drive
Passenger cars after two or three days, longer in hot weather. For the first month, avoid parking in one spot for long stretches, put a board under trailer jacks and kickstands, and try not to turn the wheels while stopped — power steering will scuff a new surface. It keeps hardening for six months to a year.
Free estimates from either office, no obligation.
Common questions
- How long before you can drive on a new asphalt driveway?
- Cars after about two to three days, longer in hot weather, and heavy vehicles after roughly a month. Asphalt cures rather than sets — it is laid hot and hardens as it cools — so summer heat makes the wait longer rather than shorter. Our guide on when you can drive on new asphalt covers the full timeline and the handful of things that mark a new surface permanently.
- Should I use asphalt, concrete or gravel?
- Length and slope usually decide it. On a short subdivision drive, concrete lasts longer and needs almost nothing done to it. On a long rural approach, the material cost of concrete over a few hundred feet is hard to justify and asphalt or crush-and-run makes far more sense. Asphalt is also more forgiving on ground that moves, and it can be resurfaced later rather than removed. Gravel is the least expensive to install and the one that needs the most attention over time. We install all three and have no reason to push you toward any of them.
- Why does my gravel driveway keep washing out?
- Because water is running down it rather than off it. A drive with no crown and no ditch becomes the lowest path on the property, so it turns into a stream every time it rains and takes your material with it. The fix is shaping — a crown so water sheds to the sides, and somewhere at the edges for it to go, sometimes with cross drains on a steep approach. Adding more stone to a drive that is shaped wrong just gives the water more to carry away.
- Can you pave over my existing gravel driveway?
- Sometimes, and it depends entirely on what the gravel is sitting on and how it drains. A well-compacted crush-and-run drive with good fall is a reasonable base for asphalt. A drive that ruts, holds water or has soft spots is not, and paving it will produce a paved surface that fails in exactly the places the gravel one did. We will dig into it and tell you which one you have.
- How often should an asphalt driveway be sealcoated?
- Every few years is typical, and the first one should generally wait until the surface has fully cured — usually the season after it was laid. Sealcoating protects against oxidation and water penetration and keeps the colour. It is maintenance rather than a fix — sealing over a driveway that is cracking because the base has failed just makes a failing driveway look tidy for a season.
Related work
Free estimates, either office
Tell us about the site and we’ll come look at it. No obligation, and no charge for the estimate.