HOWARD'S DRIVEWAY PAVING

Everything seemed to go well and the job looked good on the surface. The job consisted of preparing and installing an asphalt driveway. It was to be a standard 2-1/2" thick compacted asphalt construction. The driveway is approximately 90' long and starts at an 8' width at the roadway, widening to 36' where the asphalt meets concrete apron. The existing base was recycled asphalt on top rock and some poor Class 5. The driveway is fairly steep and where the drainage was directed was a concern which they worked at correcting. What was to happen was that the recycled asphalt was to be scraped off, saved and reused as the base material while the poorer base material would be removed. The recycled asphalt would then be reused, leveled and compacted in preparation for the installation of the finished product. The job was completed and looked great. About 3 years after the installation, long cracks started appearing and we attributed them to areas where power lines were trenched and the ground was not compacted totally. Spider-web like cracked areas started appearing shortly after the long cracks and last summer we started experiencing sink holes in the driveway along a line that stretched from the concrete to one side of the drive. The first happened under the front tire of a contractor's pickup. The next just started appearing not too far away from the first and the most recent happened last week under my own truck tire. These holes we attributed to an area that was not compacted very well. After the first sink hole appeared last summer, we called Howard's Driveway to ask him to come over and give us an estimate to repair the driveway. We thought much of the damage was caused by the equipment that was used during our year-long landscaping projects. He never even returned our call which made me suspicious. It is now another summer and almost 7 years after installation. The real truth was revealed today. Another contractor we called to access the damage and repair the driveway started the project. Our expectation of repairing the driveway has turned into a total removal of the work done by Howard's and replacement of the asphalt and all the underlying base materials. We discovered that where the large spider-web cracks were, the asphalt was less than 1" thick and many areas, this one included, were applied directly over clay. The recycled asphalt base I had was very scarce leading me to believe that it was scraped off and resold to someone else. Poor quality fill and straight clay is what I have left. There were many other areas where the asphalt was only 1" deep too and it was this reason that the entire driveway is being replaced. I took many photos of the entire home building process and reviewed them today after the new contractor removed the existing asphalt. I was appalled to see what was under the existing asphalt verses what was my pictures showed how the original driveway looked before the first asphalt job was started. What we saw today was poor-grade Class 5 and clay with little to no recycled asphalt. My advice is to seek driveway services elsewhere and do some research. When we contracted Howard's in the first place, we were not looking for the cheapest price as we did not even get another bid. Being new to the area, we relied on the advertizing of the contractor and what he described that he would provide. I plan on reviewing the current contractor too, but I have many positive reviews from others and the current contractor is trusted by the state highway department and local government and business customers.

They did not finish the low spot on driveway. Communication is very slow between us and the company. We put down a deposit and havent heard back from the Company.