Mike's Project of the Week

(Actually this was last week's project, I just didn't get it posted until now.)

    If you live in an area where asphalt driveways are the norm (as opposed to concrete) you have a periodic task of sealing the driveway. The asphalt invariably cracks over the years and gets washed out by the sun so you have to put a thin layer of protectant over the driveway. We always purchase a higher end sealant that is supposed to last for 7-10 years but it seems that after 3-4 years my husband decides it's time to do it again. Fortunately the weather has been very pleasant the last few weeks (although little rain) so it was a nice day to be out on the black driveway.

    We've found that it goes fastest if one person pours while the other one spreads. Since the buckets are very heavy, my husband gets the job of pouring. He helps some with the spreading but soon has to open the next bucket and get it stirred so it is ready to pour. I gave him the job of taking some pictures while I was spreading. I managed to get a few pictures of him when I got ahead of his pouring.



Our garage door faces our back yard so the driveway goes past the garage and there is a large pad to turn and pull into the garage. Of course our garage is full of all kinds of other things so we use the pad to park our cars. It took us about 3 hours to seal the whole driveway and parking pad. We used 6 buckets of sealcote plus a little more of a seventh. Since the sealcote has a short shelf life, we took the last bucket to Mike's Mother's house and sealed part of her driveway. I thought we should have gone ahead and bought more to do the whole driveway but he said that can wait until the spring and another project of the week.



Before



After