How can we tell our drive was actually properly slurry sealed

I suspect that the paved driveway is slightly crowned or sloped - the asphalt swale takes the heavy run-off during downpours and channels it to a more desireable drainage point - so as to avoid erosion along the edge of the pavement which will eventually lead to damage. John T.

Did you call the police and report this?

You can hire a pavement engineer from a local civil engineering firm. Call around, tell the engineering firms that you want to hire a professional to assess the condition of the pavement and provide a professional opinion as to what should be done.

If your questions are as important as you make them out to be, then, there is no substitute for answers from a professional.

How are we supposed to tell from a picture that shows a closeup of one section? We have no idea the grade, how much surface area there is, where the water goes to, etc. It looks like it's essentially a gutter to take the water away, but then I'm not there when it's raining. IDK what this means:

"the 45-year-old drive has two feet of soil on top of a 2-foot 45-degree"

But if the asphalt is 45 years old, the advice someone else gave, that with all those big cracks you're going to need to think about replacement, probably is right. Short of that, you're probably putting lipstick on a pig. But then we can't see the whole thing either.

I think that rope type crack sealer is probably the best stuff there is for a DIY. It melts and goes in hot.

Which is why they have a variety of other products available too. Pros use hot product or similar that comes off a truck, which is probably what you need when you have a 2000 ft driveway that 9 people are paying for.

Looks like the cheap eqpt that a typical fly-by-night type would use to apply seal coat. The eqpt isn't the problem, it and the truck are symptoms of the problem. Guys who know what they are doing could seal coat your driveway using that eqpt and do a good job. But pros who know what they are doing usually don't drive around in a rental truck with a small trailer.

Where were you when this was all happening? I can understand that you wouldn't be able to tell what the specific seal coat product was they were using. But you say there were areas on the sides that were covered with dirt, that they just ignored. That there were cracks not done right, other cracks you have pics of that were not done at all. It's not rockets science that has to be done first, then the seal coat goes over the whole thing. It's like painting a house, you do the prep work, repairs first, then apply the top coat. If they were applying seal coat, but cracks were not done, dirt areas were still on the side, why wasn't anyone stopping them and asking what's going on?

Did you have a written contract? What does it say? How large is this job and what did you pay?

I have no idea, but 10 inches is obviously too deep.

The op said 10 inches deep, wonder if they meant long? I asked, didn't see an answer. This may to be more then a typical seal coat project,especially since it now appears the pavement is 40 years old.

There's 2 or 3 crews come by our house every year offering to seal our driveway. As it's over 1800 ft. long, they likely figure it's a good paycheck. Problem is, unless you follow them from where they buy the sealant to your home, there is no guarantee that the sealant is 100%. A common ruse is to get a partial tank, and top it off with water. There is variation as to the quality of sealant as well. So, first off, you hope the sealant they are purchasing is of good quality, and then you hope they don't dilute it after they purchase it.

IOW, as someone else pointed out, only time will tell. Usually our driveway 'looks good' for two years... tops.

The date is 29/08/2017 23:55

In continuing, I found a nice PDF of the different kinds of asphalt cracks:

Ours don't seem to be "Fatigue Cracks" (which can't be effectively sealed), the lack of which explains why we have no potholes even after 45 years of use.

Nor do they seem to be "Edge cracks" or "Slippage cracks" or "Reflection cracks", nor "Joint cracks", none of which respond well to sealing.

Our cracks seem to be more like "Longitudinal cracks" & "Transverse cracks" caused most likely by thermal stress, which can be effectively sealed.

The decision of whether to seal or fill a crack seems to be based on whether the crack is working or non-working and whether the crack undergoes horizontal or vertical movement.

The main problem is that the better sealants are thermoplastics with cloth binders, both of which take specialized equipment.

But the good news is that the cold-poured materials are ok for non highly trafficked areas like our drive, which maybe gets a dozen to two dozen vehicles a day.

The date is 31/08/2017 06:13

We had what seems like a reputable paver walk the drive with some of us, and he recommended a few things, but otherwise said the slurry is OK.

This second paver recommended fixing some of the aligatoring (which I hadn't noticed until I read the Caltrans crack-repair PDF) so what the second paver said is reasonable.

This second paver said the slurry is fine and that the 45-degree drainage "bank" is just there for good drainage but that it would cost us two days of "bobcat" work to remove but that it doesn't need to be removed.

This second paver said that the cracks that were sealed were not sealed with the filler but just the sand & slurry seal, but that this is often done by pavers so it's "normal" and maybe even "ok" but the deeper cracks should be filled & sealed.

This second paver said "leave it alone" for about a year, except for the deeper cracks, and he said he'd give us $200 worth of materials to do an emergency seal, gratis, as a gesture of good faith for us to consider him in about a year (he said he's so busy that he couldn't get to us until October anyway, which we believe because three of the contractors we contacted, I found out, told us the same thing - that they're so busy they can't do the work until the winter or spring of next year).

In the end, I got what I wanted, which was an education. When I walk the drive, I NOTICE STUFF I never noticed before, like the aligatoring, and the deeper cracks, and the sandy seal where it's done well and where it's not done so well, and the difference between fill and seal, etc.

Thanks for all your help - the job was better than we thought, but not really a good job and we withheld much of the payment but they just disappeared so, we'll sit tight and relatively happy since we got exactly what we paid for (so far).

We have a third paver coming next week to give us a quote to finish the repair, but we may call him off based on what the second paver told us.