LESLIE: Ryan is on the line and has a question about how to seal marked-up driveway. What’s going on?
RYAN: I have rubber marks in my asphalt driveway. Looks like some people were doing burnouts in it before …
TOM: Say, who’s spinning – who’s burning rubber in your driveway? You’ve got a teenager?
RYAN: Yeah, we just bought the house.
TOM: Yeah.
RYAN: And the previous people must have had some big parties or something but – so I tried a degreaser and a power washer but it didn’t come out. And I’m clueless; I can’t find anything else.
TOM: I don’t think you’re going to get those out. I think you’re probably just going to have to let them ride until you decide to seal marked-up driveway again. So, it’s a bit cold now but come spring – maybe spring or fall – this would be a good project and that’s to reseal the whole driveway and just kind of cover them over. I don’t think you’re going to be able to clean asphalt. It’s hard enough to get oil stains out but if you’ve got burn marks in it, I just don’t see it happening.
RYAN: Oh, OK. That’s good to know. And is sealing the driveway – is that something I could do myself or should I hire a …?
TOM: Sure. Yep. Well, yeah, either way. You definitely could do seal marked-up driveway yourself. You can buy good-quality sealer products at your home center, like Home Depot. I know QUIKRETE makes them. And what you’re also going to buy is an oversized squeegee. It’s like the squeegee the size of a big, old push broom. And you need to make sure that if there’s cracks, there’s products you use for that. And you make sure it’s nice and clean, then you kind of start down one end and work your way out. And give it a good day or two in the sunshine to dry up real nice and hard and then you’re good to go.
It’s something you have to do every couple of years when you own an asphalt driveway, because the road salt, the ice, it really wears on it, as does the sun. And it’s going to shrink, it’s going to crack and the surface is going to wear off. You have to again seal marked-up driveway.
RYAN: OK. Is there a specific product, Tom, that you recommend?
TOM: I would look at the QUIKRETE products – Q-U-I-K-R-E-T-E. I know those guys. They’re really good. Their formulations are really awesome. I saw – in fact, when I saw your note coming up here on our caller screen, I was wondering if it was a concrete driveway.
Because I just came back from a trade show where they showed me a resurfacer product that was absolutely amazing. We get a lot of calls from folks that have old, deteriorated concrete surfaces. So they – and they always try to put more concrete on it or more cement on it and it peels off. They come up with this resurfacer product. And what they did was they did like a tensile-strength test on it where it’s, basically, apply the concrete and then they try to pull it apart, right, try to pull this resurfacer off the concrete. This stuff was so strong, it actually took chunks of the concrete, in aggregate, with it when they tried to pull it apart. So I mean that’s good chemistry right there.
And so that’s what I mean: I trust those formulations and I think they put a lot into them to make sure that you have good adhesion and good performance out of it.
RYAN: Alright. Well, thanks so much. And I listen to you guys all the time. I’ve learned a ton from you both.
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