Asphalt Paving in Rochester Hills, MI

Asphalt paving in Rochester Hills is mostly about suburban driveways that have reached the end of their first life. The city became Rochester Hills in 1984, when what remained of Avon Township incorporated, and most of its 31,000-plus housing units went up in the decades on either side of that date. Census estimates put owner-occupancy near 77 percent and show almost 89 percent of residents in the same home a year earlier. People here tend to stay, and they want a driveway that will last as long as they do.

Southeast Michigan winters

Detroit Metro Airport, the official weather station for the region, averages about 45 inches of snow a year and around 120 days with a low at or below freezing. The average freeze window runs from about October 20 to April 22. Every one of those freeze-thaw swings works water into cracks and lifts a weak base. A driveway built with enough compacted gravel, the right asphalt thickness and a surface that sheds water handles that well. One that does not tends to show alligator cracking and sunken edges within a few years.

The base is the job

Cost guides describe a standard residential asphalt driveway as 2 to 3 inches of compacted hot mix over 6 to 8 inches of compacted gravel, with more of both for heavy vehicles. We dig out soft spots, replace them with crushed stone, grade the base so water leaves the pavement, and compact in lifts before any asphalt arrives. On rolling lots in the northern part of the city, we pay extra attention to where water runs at the bottom of the drive.

The approach has its own rules

Rochester Hills publishes its own specification for driveway approaches, the part between your property and the road. For residential asphalt approaches, it calls for 6 inches of hot mix asphalt over 4 inches of 21AA aggregate base, placed as a 2-inch 13A wearing course over a 4-inch 3C leveling course laid in two 2-inch lifts. Concrete approaches are 6 inches of 3,500 psi concrete over the same base. The spec also sets widths and flares, slopes between 2 and 8 or 10 percent depending on the road's speed limit, and a 2 percent maximum slope where the drive crosses a sidewalk or pathway. That is thicker than many people's driveways, and it is what the city expects.

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Ditches and culverts

On roads without curbs, the driveway crosses a roadside ditch over a culvert. The city's specification calls for at least a 12-inch, 16-gauge galvanized corrugated metal pipe with at least a foot of cover to the top of the pavement, extending at least 3 feet beyond each side of the driveway. A crushed or undersized culvert backs water up against the drive and softens the base. When we see one, we include it in the quote.

Repair, resurface or replace

HomeGuide suggests repairing or resurfacing when damage covers less than about a quarter of the surface, the asphalt is under 15 to 20 years old and the base is stable, and replacing when cracking covers most of the surface, potholes keep returning or water problems are chronic. We tell you which applies to your driveway, and if sealing and patching will do, that is what we quote.

Rochester Hills is home base. We also work in Rochester, Oakland Township, Auburn Hills, Troy, Bloomfield Hills and Bloomfield Township, Orion Township and Lake Orion, Oxford, Clarkston, Waterford, Pontiac, Birmingham, Royal Oak and Clawson in Oakland County, and in Shelby Township, Utica, Sterling Heights, Washington Township, Macomb Township and Romeo across the line in Macomb County.

Each place handles the road right-of-way its own way. Some cities, like Rochester Hills and Auburn Hills, set their own approach rules; county roads fall under the Road Commission for Oakland County or Macomb County; state highways fall under MDOT. Lake country to the north and west has its own drainage issues. The community pages below cover what we found for each.