Driveway drainage repair in Edmonton, fixed before sealing
Water that cannot run off a surface will go under it instead. Fixing where it goes is the single change that most extends the life of asphalt, and it is the one most often left out of a repair quote.
Asphalt is not waterproof. A surface holding water for hours after rain is slowly letting it through, and what it reaches is the granular layer that holds everything up. Saturated granular loses strength under load.
Then winter does the rest. Water sitting in and under the surface expands as it freezes, lifting the asphalt slightly, and drops it again on the thaw. Repeat that through a season and the bond between the layers is gone.
The visible result is the stuff people call for: potholes appearing in the same spots, areas that settle, and surfaces that fail years earlier than they should. The mechanism is the same every time.
Regraded area
How it runs
How Edmonton drainage problems are put right
Mark the water while it is there
The wet outline after rain shows exactly where the surface is flat or falling the wrong way, which a dry inspection cannot tell you.
Find where the water should be going
A kerb, a swale, a catch basin or simply the lawn. There is no point regrading a surface until there is somewhere for the water to arrive.
Regrade the area
The section is cut out and the base rebuilt to a corrected fall, because the slope is set in the layer below and cannot be fixed by the asphalt on top.
Test it with water
The finished area is run with water and watched. A grade that looks right and still holds a puddle has not been fixed.
Before a drain
Cheaper Edmonton options before installing drainage
Regrading is usually enough. Most ponding is a flat spot rather than a site-wide problem, and correcting the fall across a modest area moves the water without any new hardware at all.
Where the water has nowhere to arrive, the answer may be outside the asphalt entirely: a low point in the lawn, a downspout extended away from the edge, or the ground beside the drive cut down so water can leave. These cost very little next to a drainage system.
Catch basins and trench drains are real solutions and they are the last resort, because they need maintenance and they fail quietly when they block. We quote the grading option first and say plainly when it will not be enough. How much fall a surface needs is on its own page, and on a lot this is part of the site survey, alongside the longer plan.
If a puddle is still there several hours after the rain stops, the surface is holding water rather than draining. Overnight is a clear sign the fall is wrong.
For a localised flat spot, yes, by cutting out that area and rebuilding the base to a corrected fall. A surface that ponds everywhere is a regrading job of a different size.
Usually not. Most ponding is fixed by correcting the grade, and drains are a last resort because they need clearing and they fail silently once they block.
Very often. A downspout discharging onto or beside a driveway concentrates far more water in one place than rain does, and extending it away is among the least expensive fixes available.
Because it expands when it freezes. Water sitting in the surface lifts the asphalt as it turns to ice and drops it on the thaw, which breaks the bond between the layers.
It slows water entering the top layer, which helps. It does nothing about a surface that ponds, because the water is still sitting there and still finding the edges and cracks.
Show us where it sits, or we will come and look after rain. You get the cause, the least expensive option that actually fixes it, and a price for doing that.
