Thursday, June 18, 2009

Doing Asphalt Repairs on Your Driveway

People usually see cleaning of asphalt driveways as hard, tiring, and time consuming. What makes it so is the way they do it. First, they know a lot of things should be done. They get confused with what to do first. Some think they can schedule their tasks in a daily manner. The truth is, repairing an asphalt driveway is just as easy as one, two, three, and four!

Pull out weeds. Wear rubber gloves to avoid getting cuts and injuries from pulling weeds. Hold the weeds on their base, and carefully pull out to get their roots. For tough weeds, use gripping tools such as pliers to pull out at least the part of the tough weeds that catch attention.

If it is hard to remove the roots of the weeds, carefully chip out surrounding of the root, when it is already around to 1 inch wide, and 1/3 inch deep, use a filler to smoothen out the surface. Also, use a chipper to smoothen pointed surfaces. Loose stones should be picked up. Use a broom to remove pebbles.
Get rid of soil and spots. For tough stains like oil or gas stains, use of cleaner is advised. Water in high pressure can be used to wash away the detergent or cleaner residue. Make sure that the driveway is completely dry before moving to the next step.

Use fillers for cracks. For small cracks, use asphalt-emulsion fillers and smoothen the surface. For cracks that are at least 1 inch wide, use cold patches. Pebbles or stones can be used to fill in most of the opening first. Cement can be an option, but this may take quite a while to completely dry. Cover the patch with plywood and drive it over. You can leave the plywood there until the patch is completely dry.

Use sealer once the patch is dry. Let the sealer dry before driving over it. Get rid of excess sealers.For best results, make sure that kids will not dig out the patch or filler out as soon as you turn your back. Remove pointed parts or surfaces as these might eventually lead to injuries. After cleaning and repairing the driveway, make sure that the cars using it are also clean. As much as possible, if mud, or oil, or gas puddles up on the driveway, immediately clean them up.



Autor: Ted Somenol

When you are looking for an asphalt repair you should get someone who is experienced and is a local contractor. If you live in Toronto then you should get a driveway repair Toronto expert.


Added: June 18, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

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