Adding a strip for a second vehicle or extending to a side door is a small job with one hard part: the join. Everything else is ordinary paving, and the join is where these either last or fail.
New asphalt laid against an old edge has nothing to bond to unless that edge is cut back to a clean vertical face. Butted against a crumbling edge it opens within a winter, and then water runs straight down the line into both bases.
So the existing surface is saw-cut, the new base is built to the same depth, and the seam is sealed once both sides are compacted. It is the same discipline as a full-depth patch and it is what separates a tidy job from a visible scar.
The second thing to settle is where your property actually ends. Widening towards the road or a neighbour can run into the road allowance, so that gets checked before anything is cut. A new strip also needs somewhere for water to go.
New strip
How it runs
How your Edmonton driveway widening is built
Confirm the line and the fall
Where the new edge will sit and which way water will run are settled first, including whether the strip stays inside your property.
Saw-cut the existing edge
The old surface is cut back to a clean vertical face so the new asphalt has something solid to be compacted against rather than a crumbling lip.
Excavate and build the base to match
The new section is dug and built to the same depth as the existing surface, so the two sides settle at the same rate instead of parting over time.
Pave and seal the seam
Asphalt is laid, rolled and brought level with the old surface, and the joint is sealed so water cannot work its way into either base.
Worth doing together
Widening your Edmonton driveway at the same time as paving
The machinery, the crew and the delivery are the same whether a strip is added on its own or as part of a larger job. Doing both at once avoids paying twice for the mobilisation, which on a small strip can be most of the price.
It also removes the join problem entirely. If the whole surface is being laid at once, there is no seam between old and new asphalt to go wrong later.
Where the existing surface is sound and staying, the strip is matched to it as closely as fresh asphalt allows. It will be darker for a season, and a coat over both once the new section has cured is what evens the colour out. The wait before that coat applies to the new strip only.
Done togetherCosts least when
The seamRemoved entirely
A later coatEvens colour
Related work
What goes with your Edmonton driveway extension
Usually quoted together because the crew is already there.
What Edmonton owners ask about widening a driveway
Not at first. Fresh asphalt is darker and stays that way for months. A sealcoat over both surfaces once the new strip has cured is what brings them to the same colour.
Up to it, usually. Past it, or into the road allowance at the front, often needs permission, so the line is checked before any cutting starts rather than afterwards.
Because a weathered edge crumbles and gives the new asphalt nothing to compact against. A saw-cut face is solid, and the seam made against it can be sealed properly.
It is more economic combined with other work, because mobilising a crew and a delivery is a fixed cost that a narrow strip has to carry on its own otherwise.
It can. More hard surface means more water has to go somewhere, so the fall on the new section is set deliberately rather than simply matched to the old one.
Usually a single day for a typical strip, including the saw cut, the base and the surface. Larger extensions with significant excavation can run into a second day.
