The Benefits of a Concrete Driveway
December 5, 2019
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If you’re looking into installing a new driveway at your home, you have multiple different options for the kind of materials you’ll use, from concrete to asphalt and pavers and more.
Concrete is generally the most common selection, and here are just a few of the biggest benefits of opting for a residential concrete driveway in Phoenix, AZ:
- Lower costs: While asphalt tends to have lower upfront installation and material costs, you can expect there to be a much lower cost for concrete over its entire life cycle. On average, you can expect a concrete driveway to last about 50 to 60 percent longer than a typical asphalt driveway. This is because asphalt has much higher maintenance costs over time, due to the binder that holds the asphalt aggregates together disintegrating or cracking.
- Ability to handle heavy loads: Concrete is very rigid and inflexible, which allows it to withstand much heavier loads than asphalt, which flexes and can therefore bend under the weight of heavy trucks. This means if you own an RV, larger truck or boat, it’s a better option to go with concrete if you know you’re going to be parking the vehicle or towing it up your driveway.
- Maintenance: You can reduce the amount of money you have to spend on maintaining your concrete surfaces over time by using contraction joints and penetrating sealers. Clear sealers protect against moisture absorption and deicers. Contraction joints help to isolate cracking that would occur while the concrete shrinks over time. There’s not much you can do to cut down the amount of money and time you have to spend on maintaining asphalt surfaces.
- Environmentally friendly: Concrete comes with lower embodied energy costs than other materials, making it an environmentally friendly paving solution. There’s a great deal of energy that is required to heat up hot mix asphalt, and the sealcoating of the surface every few years also requires additional petroleum products. Plus, when you consider how much longer a concrete driveway will last than an asphalt driveway, that means it will not consume as much energy.
- Resale: If you’re ever interested in putting your home on the market, concrete driveways will tend to deliver a higher resale value than their asphalt counterparts, because of their durability and lower cost of maintenance over time compared to asphalt. When you have the opportunity to make your home a bit more desirable, it’s a good idea to take advantage of it.
- Curb appeal: There are plenty of options available to give you some creative and attractive designs with your concrete. Colored concrete is ideal if you want to achieve a darker surface. You can use stamped concrete surfaces to create eye-pleasing textures to match the architectural style of your home. Exposed concrete aggregates can also offer an appealing three-dimensional sort of appearance.
These are just a few examples of some of the benefits of investing in a residential concrete driveway in Phoenix, AZ. Contact the team at Sunstar Seal Coating, Inc. today to learn more.
Categorised in: Concrete
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