Crack Filling

They do different jobs. Sealer is a surface coating — it will not bridge a gap, and pouring it over an open crack just lets the crack reappear. Filling first and sealing after is the right order, and filling on its own is still worth doing if the rest of the surface is sound.

Late summer into autumn, before the first freeze. Cracks are at their widest in cold weather and tightest in the heat, so filling in autumn puts material in at close to the average width. Filling right before winter is the single highest-value thing you can do for an ageing driveway.

Yes — hot-pour filler is black and slightly glossier than weathered asphalt, so you will see the lines. A sealcoat afterwards evens the color out. Anyone promising an invisible crack repair is overselling it.

Roughly a quarter inch up to about an inch. Narrower than that will not take material. Wider than an inch, or anywhere the edges have crumbled away, wants a patch instead — filler poured into a hole that wide slumps and fails.

That is base failure showing through, not a surface crack, and filling it does nothing. Those areas need to be cut out and rebuilt from underneath. If you see it spreading across a wide area, the honest answer is usually replacement rather than repair.

Three to five years on a typical driveway. The pavement keeps moving with the seasons, so a filled crack can reopen slightly at the same line — that is the material flexing rather than failing. Topping it with a sealcoat afterwards buys more life.

On anything substantial, yes. Routing cuts a clean reservoir so the filler has something to key into and a consistent depth to work with. Blowing the crack clean and pouring into a ragged edge is faster and it is why so many crack repairs pop out the first winter.

Usually within an hour or two, once the material has cooled and set. We will let you know before we leave, and we will tell you if a hot day means waiting longer.