New asphalt for driveways, rear parking pads, shared drives behind a row of houses, and small lots, in the city and out through Montgomery, Delaware and Bucks counties. A coat of sealer only helps asphalt that is still in one piece. This page is about the driveways that are past that, how to tell which kind of new asphalt yours needs, and what a Philadelphia paving job has to deal with that a suburban one elsewhere does not.
Nobody should pave a driveway that a smaller job would save. The order we look at it in is the order of the bill.
An overlay adds an inch and a half to two inches of asphalt. On an open suburban drive that is nothing. Behind a row of houses it can be the whole question. The new surface has to meet a garage door that already sits low, a neighbor's section that is not being done, a concrete pad, a drain inlet and sometimes a step. Lay new asphalt on top of all that and water that used to run to the inlet runs into somebody's garage instead.
So on tight rear drives the old asphalt is usually milled or cut back along the edges first, and the finished height is set by where the water has to go, not by how thick the new layer is. If a quote for an overlay on a shared or enclosed driveway does not say what happens at the garage thresholds, ask before you sign it.
Across much of the Northeast and in older parts of the Northwest, houses in a row share one driveway at the back, with each garage opening onto it. The City is plain about who owns that surface. Its Streets Department says driveways and alleys are private property, that the City does not own or maintain them, and that every owner with deed rights to use one must share the cost of repairing or rebuilding it, even when only part of it needs work.
In practice that means a shared drive gets paved well only when the neighbors agree to do the run together. One owner repaving the twenty feet behind their own garage leaves seams on both sides for water to find, and a slope that no longer lines up with the next section. We will measure and quote the whole length, show where the water goes now and where it should go, and put each property's share on the sheet so the conversation between neighbors starts from numbers rather than guesses.
Inside the city, the Streets Department issues a Curb and Footway Permit for any alteration or repair of a sidewalk or curb. Its published right-of-way standards list what goes with the application: a plot plan and a valid curb setter license from Licenses and Inspections. A new or changed curb cut goes through the Streets Department as well, and an existing driveway that has no approval on record can be reviewed with no promise it will be accepted as built.
Out in the townships every municipality has its own version. Some want a permit for any driveway replacement at all, some only for work at the apron, and some only when the paved area gets bigger. The county pages set out what each township's own pages say. Either way, your quote states which permits the job needs and who is pulling them.
A second thing worth checking on any paving quote in the city: Philadelphia requires a Contractor License from Licenses and Inspections for construction and repair work, and a contractor who works only on existing one and two family homes can instead register as a Home Improvement Contractor with the Pennsylvania Attorney General. Ask whoever quotes you which of the two applies to them.
Paving is priced per job, after someone has looked at the driveway and the ground under it. You get one written figure with the scope in plain words: what comes out, how deep, what goes back and how thick, where the water will run, and what happens at the street.
Hot asphalt has to go down on ground that is not frozen and be rolled while it is still hot enough to compact, so paving here stops once the cold settles in and picks up again in spring. The weeks before the weather turns fill first. If you want it done before winter, book in late summer rather than in November.
Fresh asphalt is not sealed straight away. It needs six to twelve months for its oils to work out and the surface to firm up. A new driveway is paved this year, and its first coat of sealer goes on next year, with crack filling every two or three years after that.
A lot is rarely all bad at once. The usual plan is to rebuild the worst areas, patch what can be patched, then seal and restripe the whole surface together so it wears as one. Parking lot sealcoating and striping covers how that is split up around a business that stays open, and the page for HOAs and property managers covers communities.
Send the address through the form and say it is about paving. If the driveway is shared, say so and tell us roughly how many houses use it. You will hear honestly whether it needs new asphalt or whether a patch and a seal will carry it a few more years, and if it does need paving you get a written scope and one price. The paving is done by a local independent paving contractor.
