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Bad driveway patch and seal work

12K views 1 reply 1 participant last post by  fastfan 
#1 · (Edited)
I hired a contractor to patch and seal my asphalt driveway, and who did a poor job. I'm cotacting the contractor about the problems. I read on the internet that if new seal was damaged by rain, a recoat won't solve the problem. I wonder what went wrong with the patch and what would be the right way to fix a rain damaged seal. Since I lost my trust to th contractor who did the work, I won't just let him do whatever he want to my driveway anymore.

Here is the story along with the pictures.

I needed to patch and coat my asphalt driveway which is quite long. The lower part of the drive was on a slope and in heavy shade for the big maples. I hired this company and was told the work would be done very quick and I could use my driveway next day (after 24 hours).

(1) On day 1 Wednesday, the workers showed up in the afternoon as scheduled and start the work. About 5 PM. The work came to talk to me told me that they ran out of the sealing stuff. Since it was late, they told me they would come the next day morning first thing around 7:30 AM. That meant I would have to park on the street for another day, but I didn't seem to have much of choice. After dinner, I checked the forecast and it said there would be a chance to rain next day afternoon and much higher chance to rain in the evening and night. I called Joe about the concern. Joe simply told me "It's my job. I know what I'm doing. You just let me do my job" without explaining if he expected that it wouldn't rain or the rain wouldn't harm the sealing.

(2) Day 2, when I left home at 9:00AM, nobody showed up yet. I came back home 6:15PM and found the whole driveway was done. There are many areas in the lower half were still wet but thanks for God it didn't rain throughout the day. However the rain started around 11:00PM when I was ready to go to bed and was pretty heavy in the night. The forecast said there would be rains and storms for the next 2 days.

(3) Day 3, rained. I called Joe about the rain. He simply responded "Your driveway was fine. Don't worry".

(4) Day 4, rained. When I checked the driveway. The top part looks fine (mostly finished in day one). The lower half was still wet and I couldn't tell if there was any problem. In the evening, I removed the yellow tape that blocked my driveway and move my cars from the street to my garage. That was 2 and a half days after all the job was done.

(5)Day 5, no rain. I went out check the drive and found many problems.
i) One spot on the top patch, car left a big impression and the patch stuff got loose and came off. That was from a single pass. When I touched the patch, it was soft and sticky. I could push the patch stuff around with one figure and the black stuff got on my figure. I was surprise because the patch was done on day one and I didn't expect any problem with it.
(ii) The lower half of the driveway in the shade, there are cracks in several areas shaped like cut figure nails and about half inch long on the seal.
(iii) Also at the lower half of the driveway, there are areas with soft black stuff in the small dents of the driveway. It looks like the sealing stuff bubbled and peeled.
My guess is that the cracks and the black stuff have something to do with the heavy rain that happened half day after the work was done.
 

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