Which one you need
Should I sealcoat or resurface my driveway?
Sealcoat while the surface underneath is still sound, and resurface once the asphalt itself has worn or cracked past what a coating can protect.
The numbers
- Sealcoating is a coating. It adds no thickness and no strength.
- Resurfacing lays new asphalt over the old surface and keeps the base.
- The base decides between them. Color and age do not.
- Roughly a quarter to a third of the surface failed is where resurfacing becomes the better value.
What each one does
A sealcoat puts a sacrificial film over the asphalt so the sun, the water and the fuel attack the film instead of the binder holding the stone together. It is maintenance, it is cheap relative to the surface it protects, and it is on a two to three year cycle in northwestern Wisconsin.
Resurfacing lays a new wearing course of asphalt over what is there. It is a new surface rather than a coat, it costs many times what a coat costs, and it keeps the expensive part of the drive, which is the compacted stone underneath.
How to tell which one you are buying
Walk the drive and step firmly. If it holds everywhere and the cracking is in lines rather than in networks of squares, the surface is sound and a coat is the right purchase. Fill the cracks first and seal over the top.
If areas give underfoot, or the cracking has broken into connected squares, those areas have lost their base. Sealer over them is money spent making a problem harder to see. They get cut out and rebuilt, and once enough of the drive is in that state a new surface is cheaper than patching patches.
The height question, on a lot
Resurfacing raises the finished surface an inch or two, which is invisible on open ground and a real problem against a curb, at a catch basin grate or at an overhead door. Where the height cannot move, the old surface gets milled off first and the new asphalt goes back in its place.