Getting a quote
How do I measure my driveway for a sealcoating quote?
Measure the length and the width in feet and multiply them, and break an odd shaped drive into rectangles and add them up.
The numbers
- Square feet equals length in feet times width in feet.
- Measure the width rather than assuming it. A single-car drive and a double are further apart than they look.
- Measure the apron, the turnaround and the parking pad separately and add them in.
- Count the cracks in feet too. Crack filling is measured along the crack, not across the drive.
- $0.15 to $0.25 per square foot is Black Widow Sealcoating's published rate, so the square footage is what decides the number.
The measurement itself
Walk the length with a tape or a measuring wheel and write it down. Do the same across the width. Multiply the two and that is your square footage.
Pacing gets you close if you do not have a wheel. Check your own pace against a tape first so you know what one of yours is worth, then count them and do the same multiplication. That is close enough to know what you are dealing with.
Odd shapes and rural drives
Break the shape into rectangles. A straight run to the garage, a turnaround, an apron at the road, a parking pad off to the side. Measure each one, multiply each one, add them together.
Long rural drives are the ones worth measuring rather than guessing at, because people are usually well out on the estimate in both directions. A quarter mile of drive is a lot of square feet and a short drive that felt long on foot is often smaller than expected.
The cracks are a separate number
Sealcoating is priced across the surface and crack filling is priced along the cracks, so a big drive with four cracks in it can cost less than a small one that has opened up all over. Walk the cracks and estimate the total feet.
It is also worth photographing anything that looks worse than a crack: an area that gives underfoot, a hole, or cracking broken into squares. Those change the answer, and they are hard to describe over the phone.