Non paving MoFo,s
I had to sit back for a minute after reading all the conjecture put on this thread by a bunch of non paving, hammer swinging, ditch digging doodoo,s. :jester:
OK, did I sound like the biggest a$$ hole on earth? I was just breaking them off.
But seriously, let me, as a self proclaimed paving expert, try to straighten out things here.
First, stamped aspahlt, at least out here in Connecticut, is cheaper in every way and superior in every way to any form of concrete in a large driveway or comercial application.
The method is to generally install the pavement and after the first roller pass, to layout the stamps and re- roll the surface. Then after a curing period you apply the color. The color, and there is quite a selection, is an epoxy based paint that lasts quite a while. You can also stamp a hardened pavement as long as its not too old but, to do that you need an infrared machine to re heat the pavement.
Now, I dont have my own set of stamps but we have subed this part of the work to a friend that does. I have a few jobs out there with this system on them and I can tell you that there is something that the paint does to armor coat the aspahlt. I,m telling you some of these jobs are over 7 years old and look as good today as the day we put them in. No shrinkage cracks, tire scuffs, scratches from snow plows, NOTHING.
As for cost, when I pave a driveway we get $2.00 to 2.50 per sq ft depending on area to do installation only. Any prep or removal and gradeing is more. Street Print is about $4 or 5 per sq ft to stamp and color. Then there is a maintnence thing where you would probably need to repaint once every 7 to 9 years(creating a high margin maintnence buisness) at about $1.00 per sq ft.
While I wont knock concrete for other parts of the country, out here it just wont last. The cost to do it so good to where it may not crack is so high no one can or would buy it. In new england the soil conditions are so varied that aspahlt is just a smarter choice, and cheaper in the long run.
I do like the stamped concrete systems out there but they seem to be better on small specialty applications than an entire driveway or parking area. Then there is the whole salt thing in the winter that can and will damage it. Aspahlt, even the stamed and colored system is impervious to salt.
As a buisness, we are a premier driveway specialist paving company that provide the masonry, and custom drainage solutions to facilitate the paving. We dont do allot of big work and we dont use driveways as filler to hope for a big job. But there are areas of the contry and even here that contractors do the oposite. For me, we are wired for residential work and anything when priced and sold correctly can be a niche.