We Shape the Ground Before Anything Else
Vegetation, soft soil and old material come out, and the ground is cut to the levels the finished surface needs. Those levels are where drainage is won or lost, so we set them before any material arrives.
New Orleans metro
Asphalt Installation in New Orleans, LA
Tell us the surface and the square footage and the job gets priced properly instead of guessed at. We are fully licensed, bonded, and insured.
Asphalt Installation
What Does Asphalt Installation Involve in New Orleans?
Asphalt installation is four pieces of work in order: clearing and shaping the ground, building and compacting a base, laying the asphalt, and compacting it while it is hot. The ground and the base take most of the time, and they decide most of the outcome. What goes on top is the part you see and the smaller part of the job.
We Build a Base and Compact It
Stone is laid and compacted in layers to carry the load that will sit on it. A base that is compacted properly is what stops the surface above it moving under a vehicle years later.
We Lay the Asphalt and Compact It Hot
The mat goes down at the specified thickness and is rolled while it is still hot, because compaction is only available in that window. Edges and joints are worked so water has no opening at the perimeter.
Asphalt Installation
Why Does the Base Matter More Than the Surface?
The base matters because a pavement works as layers: the asphalt spreads the load it takes and passes it down, and everything below it has to carry what reaches it. When a new surface fails early, the cause is usually underneath it rather than in the mix.
Compaction That Stopped Short
A base that was not compacted to full depth settles under traffic, and the surface follows it down. It is invisible once the asphalt is over it.
Levels That Do Not Drain
Water that cannot leave sits at the low point, works into the base and takes its strength away. Also invisible once the asphalt is down.
This is why we spend the time we do on the parts of the job nobody photographs. If you want to see what happens when that work is skipped, our asphalt repair page shows the failures it produces.
Asphalt Installation
How Long Does an Installation Take?
The honest answer is that the schedule is set by the site, not by the square footage. Access, the state of the ground, how much of the area can go out of use at once and the weather all move it, and we would rather give you a date we can hold than a fast one we cannot.
Which Days the Surface Is Unusable
You get the dates before the crew arrives, and which parts of the area stay open while the rest is worked.
What Has to Be Moved, and By When
Anything standing on the area has to be off it before we start. That list and its deadline come with the estimate.
What Weather Would Stop Us
We tell you what the weather would have to do for us to stop, and what happens to your dates if it does.
Asphalt Installation
Is Asphalt the Right Surface for Your Property?
Asphalt suits most driveways, parking lots and access roads here because it is flexible, it can be repaired in sections rather than replaced whole, and it can be walked on and driven on sooner than the alternatives. It is not the right answer everywhere, and we will say so when it is not.
Where Asphalt Works Well
Residential driveways, including ones with a slope that has to shed water. Commercial lots carrying delivery vehicles rather than cars alone, and access roads where a section may need lifting later for services.
Where We Would Talk It Through First
Areas that sit under standing water and cannot be drained, ground that is still settling from recent work, and surfaces that will hold a static heavy load in one place for long periods.
Asphalt Installation
What Moves the Price of an Asphalt Installation?
The price moves with the measured area, how much ground preparation the site needs, the depth of base and asphalt the use calls for, access for our equipment, and how much of the area can be closed at once. We do not publish a price per square foot, because the same square foot costs different amounts depending on what has to happen under it.
Ground Preparation
Firm, level ground and soft ground that has to be dug out and rebuilt are different jobs on sites of the same size.
Depth
A car driveway and a lot carrying loaded trucks are not built the same way, and the depth follows the traffic.
Access
What our equipment can reach, and what we have to carry in, both move the schedule and the price.
Drainage Work
Whether levels alone will move the water, or whether something has to be added to move it.
All of it goes to you in writing before anything starts, at no cost. If your existing surface could be kept and paved over rather than dug out, the estimate will say that too.
Asphalt Installation
What Happens After the Surface Is Down?
A new surface needs very little in its first years, and what it does need is small. Our asphalt maintenance page sets out what that involves, and seal coating covers the protective coat itself.
Keep Water Moving Off It
Clear the drainage lines and the low points, and the surface sheds what falls on it instead of holding it.
Deal With a Crack While It Is a Line
A single crack is a sealing job. The same crack left through a season has branched into a pattern, and then it is a repair.
Seal It When It Is Ready
Sealing follows the condition of the mat rather than a calendar. We tell you when yours is ready.
Asphalt Installation
Where Do We Install Asphalt?
We install asphalt across the New Orleans metro, and each area we cover has a page of its own with the local detail on it. If your property sits on the edge of these areas, call us and we will tell you plainly whether it is in range.
Greater New Orleans
New Orleans, Metairie, Kenner, Gretna, Harahan and River Ridge, across Orleans and Jefferson Parish.
The Northshore
Slidell, Covington, Mandeville and Madisonville, across St. Tammany Parish.
The River Parishes and Baton Rouge
St. Rose, LaPlace, Hammond and Baton Rouge, across St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, Tangipahoa and East Baton Rouge Parish.
Standards
What Do the Asphalt Specifications Actually Say?
Two claims repeated across the paving trade do not survive a reading of the source documents.
A
Minutes, not days
Asphalt does not have a cure time. It gains full strength on cooling and can typically support traffic within minutes of construction, and hours only in rare cases depending on lift thickness and ambient conditions. A newly built two inch surface is generally a few minutes.
B
A few days is advice
The association guidance still recommends waiting a few days before opening a new residential driveway, and keeping a heavy moving truck off a fresh mat. That is best practice advice about protecting a new surface, not a curing requirement.
C
No single minimum temperature
The minimum is set by lift thickness and mix type in the governing specification. Colorado DOT Table 401-3 sets 60 F for a top layer under 1.5 inches, 50 F from 1.5 to under 3 inches, and 45 F at 3 inches or more. Tennessee DOT Table 407.09-1 as revised 12-27-23 sets 45 F unmodified and 55 F modified under 2.0 inches, and 35 F at 2.0 inches or more. Neither of those is Louisiana's specification.
D
Do not seal a new mat early
A well designed low traffic pavement should not require sealing for approximately 2 to 5 years, and the association guidance is not to apply sealer until the driveway is at least several months old.
Not claimed here: 3 to 7 days before traffic
Widely repeated, but every page carrying it was a paving company's own marketing or a content site, and the Asphalt Institute contradicts the framing outright. It does not appear on this page.
Not claimed here: 50 F is the minimum
Repeated as a flat rule. The two state specifications read in full show the minimum is thickness and mix dependent, and those two specifications do not even agree with each other.
The rest of the work
What Else Do We Do With Asphalt?
Pick the one that matches your surface instead of reading one page written for all of them.
Asphalt Maintenance
Crack filling and routine upkeep on a surface that has not failed. It is the one service on this list you call about before anything is wrong, and it is what keeps the other five further away.
See maintenance
Asphalt Paving
Driveways, parking lots and roadways, with the mix matched to the traffic the surface actually carries, whether that is over a new base or over a surface sound enough to keep.
See paving
Asphalt Repair
Potholes, splits and patches that have let go, dealt with in place. The moment water gets past them and reaches the base underneath, a repair stops being a repair and turns into a repave.
See repair
Asphalt Replacing
The old surface comes out and is hauled off, then the area is repaved. The demolition and removal is what separates this from an overlay, and it is where much of the extra work sits.
See replacing
Seal Coating Asphalt Paving
A coat over a surface that is still structurally sound, on the two to five year interval the sources give. It will not rescue a failing base, and it does not go on a mat that is only weeks old.
See seal coating
Ready for a Free Asphalt Installation Estimate in New Orleans?
Tell us the surface and the square footage, and the job gets priced properly instead of guessed at.
Driveways
Residential drives across the New Orleans metro, measured and quoted on the surface you actually have.
Parking lots
Commercial lots, surfaced and graded so water leaves them, then kept that way.
Every area we cover
Each area has its own page, written from its own facts. The service areas page goes straight to any of them.
