Thinking about resealing my driveway...some questions....

[vi5]

How long until one can walk or drive on it again? The sealers I see at home depot say it's ready within the hour. Is that true? The way my house is, I literally have no way in or out without at least walking on the driveway. This doesn't exactly leave an open window of many times I could do this.

Recomendations?

[goju]

1. Professionally done

It doesnt cost that much, about 200 for an average driveway. You can spend half a day and 100 in materials if you truly want to do it yourself but the hassle is a huge factor.

We redid ours a few years ago, we were able to drive on it a few hours after they were done. They can put something down, i think, if you absolutely need to walk on it immediately. Visquine or plastic, whatever, I think can cover it for a few minutes while you walk on it. Just as long as you dont pull up the sealant with your shoes.

[RhodaGrits]

2. We do ours every few years (when you can see the sealant is going/gone)

and we've had it done both professionally and by ourselves. Doing it ourselves saves 600 bucks and it is put on thicker and more carefully. (Make sure you seal any cracks first and sweep it well first.) We try to do it when the weather calls for several days of hot dry weather and we don't use it until the following day. You can usually tell if it is dry enough to walk on... which was a few hours later. If you have a flat drive, it would be probably safe to drive on carefully at that time but ours is 400 ft up a steep hill and the tires have to dig in to get traction so we wait to be sure.

[jmowreader]

3. Start by filling the cracks

We carry three kinds of driveway sealers--Monsey Blacktop Sealer, which is coal tar-based and sells only to Budget Driveway Sealing companies, Henry 532 (walk-on time 24 hours), and Henry PM2000 (walk-on time 4 hours).

Quick question: can you get in and out of the house through a door in the garage? If so, use the Henry 532--it has a longer warranty and is a better product than either of the others--and seal one side of the driveway at a time.

How to proceed: Measure your driveway. You need one gallon per 100 square feet of surface.

Use Henry 305 crack filler to fill up any cracks in the asphalt--be sure you sweep out the cracks before you put this in them. How much to get? Most people just buy us out, fill the cracks and bring back the two bottles they have left. Potholes are filled with Henry 304. All this needs a couple of days to dry.

You apply the 532 with a squeegee. Squeegees cost three dollars. Seal one side, wait two days, then seal the other side.