Driveway Sealing

[1ntCobra]

I actually had some luck with repaving (NOT sealcoating) the driveway at my old house with a company that had some extra asphalt from a bigger job. They were doing a driveway that was about 400 feet long a couple of blocks away and I had an 80 foot driveway of 1 car width. The company had really serious looking equipment with the company name painted on the sides of their trucks and had about 6 people on the crew. I think I paid them $600 to get my driveway repaved with about 2 inches of asphalt on top of the old driveway. My next door neighbor got the same deal. The price seemed pretty reasonable and they did a good job.

A couple of years ago, my parents picked a company out of the phonebook to have their driveway seal-coated. My dad was away on a business trip. When the company showed up, they started ripping up the driveway for re-paving and my mom went out there and yelled at them because they were supposed to be coating the driveway, not repaving it. They re-paved it and sent my parents a bill for something like $4500. When my dad got back, he argued with them and ended up paying about $3000. And this was for what I consider a small driveway, 2 cars wide and 2 cars deep.

So the companies you find in the phonebook can be even more trouble than a re-paving company guy driving around the neighborhood looking for extra work.