Over the years your concrete driveway has put up with a lot but is now cracking and crumbling and you’ve decided to replace it with a new asphalt driveway. While it may be tempting to pave right over the old concrete, there is a multitude of great reasons why you shouldn’t.
When laying asphalt, it requires a strong and stable base. That base is provided by direct contact with the ground below. By laying asphalt on top of cracked and breaking concrete, you’re pretty much guaranteeing that your new driveway will shift, and crack, making you need to replace it sooner than later.
A concrete driveway is built with expansion joints allowing it to expand and contract as needed along those joints. Asphalt doesn’t need these joints as its composition allows for expansion and contraction, but laying asphalt on top of concrete will cause the joints of the concrete to crack your asphalt.
The cost of laying asphalt over concrete is definitely less than removing the concrete first. While it is a cost saver upfront, the danger that laying asphalt on concrete presents means that you will be replacing your driveway way sooner than you should, not to mention the maintenance you’ll be forced to do until you finally bite the bullet and replace it.
Do you have questions about replacing your concrete driveway? Reach out. We’d love to help!
