New asphalt driveways, overlays, rebuilt aprons and small lots across Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties. A driveway that has only faded needs sealer. One that has sunk, split into plates or lost its edges to the lawn needs asphalt, and this page is about telling those apart and what a paving job here actually involves.
In a lot of Orlando subdivisions the driveway is not asphalt at all. It is interlocking brick or concrete pavers, and plenty of owners are deciding between re-laying pavers and switching to blacktop. We lay and maintain asphalt. We do not seal, re-sand or re-level pavers, and we would rather say so here than waste your morning.
If you are weighing the two, the honest differences are these. Asphalt is one continuous surface, so it has no joints for weeds and ants to work through, and it is usually the cheaper surface to put down per square foot. It is also dark, it gets hot to bare feet in July, and it needs a coat of sealer every few years to hold off the sun. Pavers cost more to lay, can be lifted and relaid in patches, and some communities require them. Check your deed restrictions before you pick.
Florida's official state soil, Myakka, is a sand, and in its natural state the water table in it can sit within about ten inches of the surface for months at a time. Most driveways here are built on sand of one kind or another. Sand drains quickly, which is good, but it has no strength of its own when it is wet and it washes out from under an edge that nothing is holding in place.
So a rebuilt driveway here lives or dies on three things. A compacted stone base thick enough to spread a car's weight across soft ground. Edges that are supported, so the sand beside the drive is not the only thing keeping the asphalt up. And a surface shaped to shed the afternoon rain toward the yard or the street rather than into the garage or along the edge where it will carry sand away.
Shade trees are the other local problem. Big roots travel under a drive, lift it into a ridge and crack it along the top. Paving over a root does not solve it. The quote will say where a root is the cause and what the options are, including leaving that section alone.
The apron, the piece between the sidewalk and the road, sits in the public right-of-way, and every city and county here wants a permit before it is replaced or widened. The rules for what the apron is made of change at each line. In unincorporated Seminole County the part in the right-of-way has to be concrete, not asphalt. The City of Orlando wants the apron the same width as the driveway. St. Cloud leaves resealing an existing asphalt drive off its permit list but wants its Public Works and Engineering staff to approve anything in the right-of-way. The county pages have the details for Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake.
One thing is the same everywhere in the state. Section 489.117 of the Florida Statutes lists driveway installation among the kinds of work a city or county may not require a contractor license for, and it may not require a license to pull the permit either. That means a permit on the job tells you the city will inspect the apron. It does not tell you anything about who is doing the work. Ask for the scope in writing.
Paving is priced per job, after the drive has been measured and someone has looked at what is under it. Nothing is quoted off a rate card, because these are the things that move the number:
You get one written price with the scope spelled out: what comes out, what goes back, how thick, and what happens at the street.
There is no winter shutdown here the way there is up north, so paving runs through the year. The limit is water. Hot asphalt cannot go down on a wet base, and from late spring through the end of summer the afternoons regularly end in a thunderstorm, so summer paving starts early and aims to be rolled before the clouds build. A day lost to rain moves; it does not get forced.
New asphalt then needs time before it is sealed, typically six to twelve months while the oils in the mix cure out and the surface hardens. Under the Florida sun the first coat of sealer is usually worth doing inside that second year, because UV is what greys a Central Florida driveway first.
Many neighborhoods here have deed restrictions and an architectural review committee, and a change of driveway material, width or color can need its approval before work starts. Ask your association before booking. We can give you the written scope and a sketch for the application so the committee is approving what will actually be built.
A lot is the same set of decisions spread over more ground. The entrance and the drive lanes usually need rebuilding long before the parking stalls do, so the cheapest plan is normally to rebuild the worst lanes, patch the rest, then seal and restripe the whole lot together so it wears as one surface. Commercial sealcoating covers how that gets phased around a business that stays open, and the HOA and property manager page covers communities.
Send the address through the form and say it is about paving. A photo of the worst part helps. The drive gets measured and looked at, you hear honestly whether it needs paving or whether a patch and a seal will carry it a few more years, and if it does need paving you get the scope and one price in writing. Paving is done by a local independent paving contractor.
