Eagle Driveway Experts
Driveway sealcoating in Eagle, Idaho
Two sprayed coats, edges cut in by hand, and a one year warranty. We have sealed driveways in Quail Ridge and along the Chinden and State Street corridors.
Why the same twenty feet of your driveway keeps failing
If your driveway is cracking in one place and holding everywhere else, the odds are good that the failing stretch runs along an irrigation lateral or a ditch.
Eagle is a patchwork of small ditch companies and lateral users' associations. Open laterals and pressurized mainlines run beside and under a lot of Eagle driveways. The canals charge from around April through October.
The subgrade under that stretch softens seasonally and then firms back up. Every year. The asphalt above it flexes a little more each time, and eventually the edge goes.
The fix is not just sealer
If the edge has already broken up, sealing it hides the problem for a season. What it needs is the failed material cut out and replaced, and then the whole driveway sealed. We will tell you which of the two you are looking at when we walk it.
The good news about Eagle soil is the part nobody mentions: it is sandy and gravelly with very high permeability. There is no expansive clay problem here. Whatever is happening under your driveway, it is water and timing, not soil that swells.
The other half is cold, not rain
There is no weather station in Eagle. The nearest long record is Boise Air Terminal, which averages 108 days a year at or below freezing on 11.5 inches of precipitation.
A hundred and eight freezing nights on less than a foot of annual precipitation means your driveway is not being destroyed by water sitting on it. It is being destroyed by the small amount of water that gets into it, freezing and expanding, a hundred times a year.
Which is why the crack filling matters more than the sealer does, and why we do it first. Sealer keeps water out of the surface. Filled cracks keep it out of the base. Water that gets into an open crack in November is what widens it by March.
A word about doing it yourself
If your driveway is in good shape and you want to do it yourself, you can. The material is available and on a small driveway in good condition a careful homeowner gets a decent result.
Here is what happened the last time somebody called us after trying.
It was a driveway in Boise. The homeowner had sealed it himself. The sealer had not bonded, the surface underneath had kept moving, and by the time we saw it there was nothing left to seal. It had to be torn out and repaved. That ran about $10,000.
The reason it is worth thinking about on an Eagle property is not that homeowners here are less capable. It is that the driveway is a visible part of a house worth three quarters of a million dollars, and the downside of getting it wrong is not a mediocre finish. It is starting over.
What we actually do
Five steps, in this order, and the first three are where the job is won or lost.
Blowers and wire brooms across the whole surface. Anywhere the sealer has to bond to dirt, it does not bond. On a driveway that has gone a few years, this is the longest part of the day.
Every crack that will take filler. Anything wider than about an inch has stopped being a crack and become a repair, and we will price that separately rather than filling it and hoping.
Sealer does not stick to oil. If there is a spot where a vehicle has been parked for years, it gets treated before anything else goes down.
Not one. Two thin coats bond better and wear better than one thick one. We use SealMaster MasterSeal, manufactured right here in Boise for this climate.
Machines do not do edges well, and edges are the first thing anybody looks at. On a long Eagle driveway with a curved entrance and a turnaround, that hand work is what makes the job look like a job.
Driveways in Eagle are not average driveways
Most of what we seal in Eagle is longer than what we seal anywhere else in the valley. Bigger lots, lower density, more homes set back from the road, more turnarounds and side approaches.
Repair volume is what moves the price, not length. Here is a real example from a long driveway we did:
8,000 sq ft of sealing + 3,500 sq ft of patching.
The sealing was the small part of that. We are showing it because it is what happens when a driveway goes past the point where sealing helps, and because the difference between that number and $600 is entirely about when somebody dealt with it.
What it costs
| Typical residential driveway, all in | $450 to $800 |
|---|---|
| Minimum sealcoating job | $450 |
| Priced by the foot (larger driveways) | $0.22 - $0.30 / sq ft |
| Crack filling | Its own line item |
| Tear out and repave (where sealing won't help) | About $4 / sq ft |
Square footage beats the flat range
The $450 to $800 range covers a normal two car driveway. Once you are past that, the honest way to price it is by the foot. If your driveway is long, ask for it priced that way. It is usually better for you than a flat number somebody guessed at.
Crack filling appears separately on purpose. It is the cheapest thing on the quote and it does the most to push the expensive work further out, so you should be able to see that number on its own and decide about it on its own.
Questions we get in Eagle
How much does driveway sealcoating cost in Eagle?
A typical residential driveway runs $450 to $800 all in, including cleaning, crack filling, two sprayed coats and a one year warranty. Longer driveways are priced by the square foot, at about $0.22 to $0.30 depending on condition.
How often should an Eagle driveway be resealed?
Every three to five years. If your driveway runs alongside an open lateral or a ditch, look at that edge first, because that is where it will go before anywhere else does.
Why does my driveway only crack on one side?
Usually because that side sits over or beside an irrigation lateral. The seasonal water table rises when the canals charge from around April through October and drops when the season ends, so the subgrade on that side softens and firms every year while the rest of the driveway sits on ground that does not move.
Can I get my driveway sealed in the fall in Eagle?
Usually, and it is a good time to do it. Sealcoating needs temperatures above about 40°F for most of the day. The nearest weather record to Eagle, at Boise Air Terminal, averages 3.3 freezing nights in October, so the risk in a normal fall is low but real.
How long before I can drive on it?
Foot traffic in about two hours. Vehicles at twelve hours, and twenty four to keep the warranty.
My driveway has a crack about an inch wide. Will sealing fix it?
No. A crack wider than about an inch has gone past what filler will hold and needs a patch. Sealing over it hides it for a few months and then it comes back in the same place.
Do you seal new driveways?
Not immediately. New asphalt needs time to cure before it takes sealer. Call us and we will tell you when yours is ready rather than selling you something too early.
Get a free estimate on your Eagle driveway
Tell us roughly how long the driveway is and what it is doing, and we will come look at it.
If it needs less than you were expecting, we will tell you that too.