Driveway selaer

[Salty]

I need to seal my asphalt driveway this year since it is now about a year old. I want to get the small holes and voids filled before the winter freeze.
What do you folks reccommend to use, an water based sealer or the asphalt based stuff?
I have been reading a lot of horror stories about the water based sealers but the info seems to be dated and I am wondering if the products have improved over the years.
There are no cracks or holes in the surface, just the voids left from the installation. I did not go to the extra expense of having a finer grained layer applied because we wanted to keep the cost down. There was one hole that I patched where there was a clump of grass that worked to the surfase. The guy that put it in refused to fix it and just kept telling me it was because I allowed oil or gas to drip on that spot. Needless to say he will never get a referal from me.

Any recomendations or advice would be appreciated.

Salty

[lkazista]

It was explained to me last year like this:

Water based needs to be reapplied every year.

The 'good stuff' needs to be applied every three years, but costs 3 times as much as the water stuff. My driveway is 130 feet long, so it was almost $300.

I foolishly went with the oil based. Here is why it was foolish.

Although it still protects, the black color fades after a year, so my driveway is now grayish instead of black. Also I have new voids and divets from this past year that will grow and expnd if I do not get the driveway sealed again.

Basically, I would go with the water stuff once a year. Thats me,

Lee

[Salty]

Thanks for that Lee. I see where you are coming from on the water based stuff but I have decided to go with the better stuff. Not the BEST, but also not the cheapest water based.
I was doing a search on google for driveway sealer and one of the hits was a how-to put up by the blue box store. Nice article but lacking in the full dimension of the various varieties. The really strange thing is, when I search their site I cannot find the product. When I enter 'blacktop' I get refrigerators and when I enter 'driveway sealer' it doesn't find anything. Seems to me that if they put up the article on how to apply it they would want you to buy it from them. I know they sell it because I breefly looked at the offerings a few weeks ago.

Anyway, after a lot of reading I decided that the asphalt based is not really needed since the 'cement' that holds the agrigate together is already there and just needs to be protected from the elements. Like one person put it, you paint your house to protect the wood so you should do something similar to protect the asphalt. The cheapest water based is like a cheap latex paint and I know better than that. The best stuff in my case is not necessary at this point since the asphalt is only about 1 year old, actually about 10 months old. It is in good shape and there are no cracks that I can find. I just need to put something on there to protect it and fill the voids before the winter. Since the first winter did not do any detectable damage I feel that all I need is a topping that will do the job of protecting it for the next 2 or 3 years, depending on how it looks.

[bmyers]

Ahh, yes. The empty buckets of black goo blocking off the end of the driveway. That always meant summer to me when I'd see them on my paper route in the morning. I miss that. Thanks for the ticket back into the past.

The don't do that here in AZ, most driveways are cement. Otherwise it's a little like fly paper in the summer time on blacktop.

I did my moms driveway several years ago (not in AZ). It was asphalt based sealer. It was hard work, alot of it. It's not just mucking around the black goo. It's also clearing off the stuff thats growing to close to the black goo target zone.

The next year, some guys in a black goo truck came around and offered to do the driveway for $100 more than the materials the year before cost, she went with that with my whole-hearted approval. I never want to do that again...


Bill

[cabinetman]

I don't know if this will be of any help, but I'm a DIY'er. I always say if someone else can do it so can I. Well I redid my asphalt driveway about 25 years ago, or so. I bought my stuff from HD, so they were in business when I did mine. They had two choices. One was a liquid coating, like black paint, and the other was to fill small voids. Well I had a lot of small voids, and used that one, with the broom/squeege thing. It turned out great, and after 5 years started to turn slightly grey, but was black for a long time. I don't remember if I had to tamp or not, but it was like the consistency of thin mayo. This is in South Florida.



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[WayneJ]

I've always used the asphalt based sealer, never had a problem.There used to be a sealer that had sand in it to fill voids. It was a bear to mix. You need a good 1/2 electric drill and the paddle thingy to mix it. I tried using a roller to put it down but had better luck just pouring it out and pushing it around with a squeegy. I hav'nt done mine over in at least 3 years and it still looks o.k.
Wayne