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Aren’t repairs supposed to look… better?

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In the summer of 2023 we had our old driveway torn up and replaced. It cost an arm and a leg (seriously, I think I could buy prosthetics for less) and we expected it to last a long time.

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This was last week.

When after months of complaining to the manager of the company about a weak spot in front of our garage that was starting to break up, my husband got satisfaction.

Or did he?

A full crew showed up free of charge and maneuvered what looked like a mattress into place.

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Turns out it’s a tar heater which melted the offending spots.

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I watched and photographed from the window for hours while they worked on the bad section.

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The end result?

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Hideous.

A black jigsaw puzzle.

This is supposed to solve the problem but to be honest I don’t think it will as the surface looks just as pocked as before.

And to make matters worse?

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They rested the flaming mattress on our lawn and browned a perfect rectangle.

Grrr…

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22 thoughts on “Aren’t repairs supposed to look… better?”

  1. Give it a few years and it will fade like the rest, he said unconvincingly.

    You can just tell folks that the brown spot is where the alien spaceship landed.

    I just had my driveway replaced. I thought about asphalt because it’s a lot cheaper than concrete, then thought about how much time I spend barefoot and realized I don’t want to burn my feet all summer.

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  2. Well that sucks, but concrete would have been a lot more sturdy. Asphalt goes through what is called vulcanization, where they add sulfur to the asphalt (which is rubber based) to modified it and is supposed to make the asphalt stronger, especially in high temp areas. When this fails, you get pock marks, unstable patches and chunks of it coming out. Just a little something I learned during my time in the Civil Engineering department, lol. Anyway, why would they put the flaming mattress on your lawn? There was an entire driveway they could have used, ugh.

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      2. Yes. If you have a high water table, like we do living by the river, the cold freezes the water under the roads, driveways and sidewalks which cracks them all to hell. You should see our garage floor. It’s concrete and is literally in pieces.

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  3. [Raises hand] Survivor and former homeowner with an asphalt driveway in Minnesota here. The freeze-thaw cycle in northern climates will inevitably take a toll on your driveway, more so if you use salt or other de-icing chemicals on it in the winter. Yes, the patching looks awful but at least you won’t have potholes forming…for a while, anyway. But contractors will always take the path of least resistance/easy way out, especially if it’s a warranty issue. They probably waited until there was a slow period on their schedule before they came out, and they sent the guys with the least amount of experience to fix your driveway. I sympathize completely! I miss living in a house but do not love the maintenance part.

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  6. And…this is what has been keeping me up at night. Really. Cupcake and I are about to get our concrete driveway ripped out and repoured. We have a well-researched contractor, but I am having my doubts about reliability. On paper, they seem good, but there are a few red flags. Out of doubt, I had a second contractor come in and provide an estimate. He was pushy, did not want to listen to what WE want, and kept insisting we needed different (and more expensive) repairs. His estimate was thousands more and took three days to provide.
    So we will stick with the first one, since I will find fault in all of them. Fingers crossed we made the right choice.

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  7. Look, you’re going about this ALL WRONG! This isn’t an annoyance or an irritation.

    No.

    This is an opportunity.

    Now you can PAINT over your ugly driveway.

    And you can paint WHATEVER you want.

    Your options are limitless!

    This is an opportunity.

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