Before any test for wear, there is a test for material, and around Raleigh it rules out a lot of driveways. Here is how to tell whether yours is asphalt, then four quick checks for whether an asphalt drive actually needs a coat this year, and the honest cases where it does not.
Concrete is light gray, sometimes almost white, and has straight joints sawn or tooled across it every several feet so it cracks where it is told to. It feels hard and cool underfoot even on a hot day. Most driveways in the newer subdivisions across Wake County, Cary, Apex and Holly Springs are concrete.
Asphalt is black when new and fades to gray. It is one continuous surface with no joints, you can see small stones in it, and on a July afternoon it softens enough that a kickstand can dent it.
If yours is concrete, it does not need sealcoating. Sealcoating is made for asphalt. Tell us on the form that the drive is concrete and you will get an honest answer about what it needs, if anything. Some homes have both: a concrete drive with an asphalt section added later, or an asphalt drive with a concrete apron the town required. Only the asphalt part is sealed.
Stand at the street and look. A drive that has gone from black to a chalky gray has lost the oils at its surface to the sun. Run your hand over it: if it leaves gray dust or loose grit on your palm, the surface is drying out and wearing.
Pour a cup of water on a sunny patch. On a protected surface it beads or runs off. If it darkens the asphalt and soaks in within a minute, the surface is open, and every summer storm is doing the same thing on a bigger scale.
Hairline cracks are normal on older asphalt. Cracks you can slide a coin into need filling before the next wet season. Cracks that join up into a pattern like the skin of an alligator mean the base is giving way, and that is a repair question, not a sealing one.
When was it last sealed? If the answer is last year, it almost certainly does not need another coat. If it is three summers or more, or nobody knows, it probably does.
The Triangle gets a long, hot summer. NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals for Raleigh-Durham International put the average July high at about 91F and count around 52 days a year at 90F or above. A black surface in full sun runs far hotter than the air, and that heat, with the ultraviolet, is what cooks the binder out of the top of the asphalt.
Then the water. The same normals give about 46 inches of rain a year, and summer brings frequent afternoon and evening thunderstorms. A heavy downpour pushes water into every open crack, and under most drives here is red clay that holds that water instead of draining it. Wet clay loses strength, the surface above it flexes, and the cracks multiply.
Winter adds its share. It rarely snows much, a little over five inches a year on average, but the thermometer drops to freezing or below on roughly 65 nights a year and climbs back above it most afternoons. Water in a crack that freezes overnight and thaws by lunch opens the crack a little more each time.
Plenty of older Triangle lots are wooded, and a drive under trees ages differently. Shade keeps it cooler, which slows the sun damage, so a shaded drive often goes longer between coats. It also stays damp after rain, collects pine needles and leaves that hold moisture against the surface, and grows moss and algae at the edges. Roots from big oaks lift and crack the asphalt in ridges. When you run the four checks on a drive like this, run them in the shady part as well as the sunny part, because the two halves of one drive can need different things.
Every two to three years for a house drive in mostly full sun, a little longer for one that is shaded and lightly used. Fill cracks each time. Lots that see delivery trucks usually want a shorter cycle in the drive lanes than in the parking bays.
Not sure which bucket yours falls in? Send the address. If it can wait, you will be told so, and if it is concrete, you will be told that too.
