The cycle
How often should a driveway be sealed?
Every two to three years in northwestern Wisconsin, because freeze and thaw here does more damage to a driveway than sun does.
The numbers
- Two to three years is the cycle in northwestern Wisconsin.
- Every year is too often. A film that never gets a chance to wear cracks on its own.
- A drive in full sun, or one a vehicle turns on in the same spot daily, comes up sooner in those areas.
- New asphalt waits. It has to cure before it takes a coat at all.
Why the cycle is measured in years
A coat of sealer is a wear layer. It is supposed to wear, and the cycle is set by how long it takes to wear through rather than by the calendar. Coating a surface that still has most of its film left stacks material that has nowhere to go, and thick sealer cracks in a fine pattern the first hard winter.
So a drive sealed last season does not need it again this one. What it needs is the cracks kept closed, which is the work that actually protects the base.
What decides where you land in the range
Sun and traffic, in that order on a driveway. A south-facing drive with no shade oxidizes faster than one under trees. A drive where a vehicle turns in the same spot every day wears through in that spot years before the rest.
Freeze and thaw is the other half, and it is why the number here is shorter than it would be further south. Water in the surface expands about nine percent every time it freezes, and in northwestern Wisconsin it does that dozens of times a winter.
The test, instead of the calendar
Look at the color and then stand on it. A surface that has gone gray has lost the binder at the top and is ready for a coat. A surface still holding black has film left.
If it gives under your weight, the cycle is not the question any more. That area has a base problem and it gets cut out and rebuilt before anything goes over the top of it.