Faulty tarmac drive installation

[msh paving]

post pix when he's finished please

[pfm401]

Cheers

Re the poor tarmac finish (open in some places not in others) it actually looks ok unless you look closely, my concern is whether it will last? Can you seal it to to prevent stone loss - I've heard this is supposed to be done anyway after a year or so?

[Tony McC]

So: How did it go? The "little device" that disguises the seam - was that by any chance a burner and a plate compactor? I often find they make the surface appearance worse, although it does tighten-up the surface and thereby make it structurally better, albeit ever so slightly.

Sealing of blacktop is not something that we typically undertake in Britain and Ireland. It's ridiculously popular in North America, but that's partly due to cultural reasons (they like blacktop to look shiny and new for far longer than us), it's subjected to more adverse weather than we experience, and also because the material they use for residential driveway surfacing is different to the genuine bitmac used over here.

There have been numerous attempts to introduce such sealants (often known as 'slurry seals') by the large US-oan manuffacturers but there is no real demand. We tend to accept blacktop as a cheap-and-cheerful surfacing option, and accept that it may not look as good as it once did (although this is improving year on year as binder technology develops) but that it gives a decent service life, considering how relatively little it costs.

[pfm401]

OK sorry it's taken so long to reply. The contractor replaced the sunken strip of tarmac with block paving that looks ok, kind of like a path part. Not exactly what we wanted but seems ok.

I'm still worried about the surface. As noted in the pictures above it's a bit "loose" and a few stones have worn away already. I noticed today that the parts of the tarmac in the sun are a bit soft i.e. you can move stones with a key. Is this normal - it's end of April and 13 degrees!

[Dave_L]

..................dare I ask, how did the asphalt hold up over the relatively hot summer we had?