There is not much to say about a paving company that a quote does not say better. So this page is about how we quote, what we write down, and the work we turn away.
The area, measured on site rather than estimated from a satellite image. People underestimate drives consistently, and an area that is wrong makes every figure built on it wrong by the same proportion.
The build, written as asphalt depth and base depth. That is the number that decides what you are buying, and a quote without it cannot be compared with another quote.
The cracking pattern, where water goes and what access allows. Three things that decide the job and none of them visible from a phone call.
Say whether it is needed
Sometimes the answer is maintenance, or nothing yet. That gets said even though the larger job would be the bigger invoice.
Build the base properly
Preparation takes most of the day because it decides how long the surface lasts. Shortening it is the easiest way to make a job look fine and fail early.
Hand it over with the detail
Return times, what the first season looks like, and when coating would be due. Explained before the crew leaves rather than left to look up.
What we decline
The Edmonton work we turn down
Coating a surface that has broken into connected pieces. It looks better for part of a season and the money is gone, so that gets said at the visit rather than after the invoice.
Replacing a surface that only needs repairs. A sound base with scattered defects gets years from patching, and spending a large sum there buys very little.
And anything that is not asphalt. Decorative finishes, colour and stamped patterns are things concrete does and asphalt does not, the end-of-life signs are published so you can check our reasoning, and coating too often is something we argue against.
The measured area, the asphalt and base depths, and the exclusions. Those three are what make a figure comparable, and a quote missing them looks lower than it is until the omissions get added back.
Yes, and it happens often. A grey surface with separate cracks and a sound base is a maintenance job, and saying so costs us the larger invoice but keeps the advice worth something.
Both, and the build is the same. What differs is the paperwork around it: a board needs scope split by line item and a phase plan, where a householder mostly needs a straight answer.
We agree the rate for additional base work before the old surface comes off, so if it arises you are approving a known figure rather than negotiating with a crew halfway through a day.
Because most of what decides a surface is cheap and unglamorous. Crack sealing and drainage do more for service life than any product, and a page that only sold resurfacing would be leaving that out.
That is what the guides are for. The cracking pattern, the drainage check and the end-of-life signs are all things you can look at in ten minutes with no tools before anyone quotes.
They cored the old driveway before quoting and showed me two inches of asphalt over clay. The quote was built on what was under it, not on the square footage alone.
Amir S.
Edmonton
★★★★★
First paving company that told me my driveway had five years left and offered crack sealing instead of a replacement. That honesty won the job when it was finally time.
Aisha Q.
St. Albert
★★★★★
The estimator measured with a wheel, marked the grade with paint and explained the drainage before any number came out. The invoice matched the sketch.
Ken T.
Edmonton
★★★★
Same crew on every job we have given them. The foreman knows our lot and the quote never drifts between the estimate and the bill.
