Stittsville's modern expansion ran through the 1990s to the 2010s, so most driveways here are still inside their service life.
An open crack is a direct route for water into the granular. Sealing cracks as they appear is the cheapest structural work available. A crack repair visit generally runs $200 to $500 and it protects a base that is still intact.
New asphalt needs 6 to 12 months of curing before its first seal. After that, every 2 to 3 years at $0.25 to $0.55 per square foot, which is about $150 to $350 for a standard double. More often than that is money without benefit.
Stittsville sits on the western side of the city toward the Carp Ridge, where ground is shallower and rockier. Where rock is close to the surface, drainage has to be handled by grade because water will not move down through it.
A concrete repair along a driveway joint where the slabs had settled unevenly. A crew member is spreading a levelling repair compound with a trowel to bring the low section back up flush with the slab beside it. Fixing an uneven joint like this removes the trip edge and stops water collecting in the low spot, without replacing the whole driveway.
Stittsville was founded in 1854 and rebuilt around the CPR line after a fire in 1870, but almost none of that history is under the driveways. The modern suburban expansion accelerated through the 1990s to the 2010s, and by 2021 the population was 40,889 across an area of 7.74 square kilometres. That compressed growth means an unusual concentration of driveways built to a modern standard within the last thirty years. For most homeowners here the sensible programme is crack sealing and periodic seal coating, not replacement. We would rather quote you $300 of maintenance that works than $6,000 of rebuild you do not need yet.
The western lots, toward the Carp Ridge, are shallower and rockier than the rest of Stittsville, and that changes what maintenance is worth. Where bedrock sits close to the surface, water that gets into the base cannot drain downward. It perches on the rock instead, and then it freezes. The failure is not settlement, it is a saturated base lifting the mat from beneath. Keeping water out of the base in the first place is the cheapest form of drainage work there is, which is why crack sealing matters more on that side of the community rather than less. Frost damage needs three conditions at once: a frost susceptible soil, sub-freezing temperature and available water. Ottawa supplies the first two without being asked, with a January mean of minus 10.0 C and 231.9 cm of annual snowfall. An open crack is how the third one gets in. A crack repair visit typically runs $200 to $500.
We look at the cracking pattern first. Fine surface cracking on a sound base is a sealing job. Wide, branching, moving cracks mean the base is involved and the conversation changes.
Cracks get routed and filled so water stops reaching the granular. This is the step that extends a young driveway by years, and it costs a fraction of anything structural.
Once the asphalt has cured 6 to 12 months, seal coating goes on and is repeated every 2 to 3 years. We put the next due date on your paperwork rather than calling you every spring.
Where the base has genuinely failed we excavate, rebuild granular in compacted lifts and repave. We quote the depths in writing so you can compare the price against anyone else's.
Most driveways here were built to a modern standard within living memory, so the base is generally intact. These are Ottawa ranges and every driveway is probed and measured on site.
$0.25 to $0.55 per sq ft
About $150 to $350 for a standard double
First seal only after 6 to 12 months of curing
Every 2 to 3 years after that
Stay off the surface 24 to 48 hours afterwards
$2.50 to $6 per sq ft
More often legitimate here than in older parts of the city
We probe the granular before recommending one
Fine surface cracking, still drains, solid underfoot
On a 600 to 800 sq ft double the saving is real
$8 to $14 per sq ft
Wide branching cracks, crumbled edges, movement under weight
A ridge that appears in winter and drops in spring
Base findings, which no surface product fixes
Quoted by excavation depth and granular depth
Stittsville was founded in 1854 and rebuilt around the CPR line after a fire in 1870. Very little of that is relevant to a driveway, and that is exactly the point worth making. The village core is old. The driveway stock is not. Modern suburban expansion accelerated through the 1990s and continued through the 2010s.
Compress that much growth into three decades and you get an unusual situation. Most of the driveways here were built to a modern standard, by builders working to current specifications, within living memory. The base under them is generally intact and the asphalt on top is generally still within its service life. The test is the base, not the birthday: the City's own position is that pavement age is not a factor in assessing pavement performance.
Seal coating has a bad reputation in some quarters, mostly because it gets sold too often and too early. The actual schedule is simple.
New asphalt cures for 6 to 12 months before its first seal. Sealing before the volatiles have left the mat traps them and leaves a soft surface. After that first application, every 2 to 3 years is the interval, and you stay off the surface for 24 to 48 hours afterwards. Anyone offering to seal a brand new driveway in its first season is selling on the wrong side of the curing window.
Crack sealing is the higher value half of the programme and it is separate from seal coating. For anything structural, the City rules apply as they do everywhere in Ottawa: no permit to resurface an existing access at the same size, and $193 with six to eight weeks of processing for a change.
Any workmanship warranty is set out in your written quote, job by job. Call (343) 314-8525.
Usually something small. If the asphalt is under a year old, nothing at all, because new asphalt needs 6 to 12 months of curing before its first seal. After that, the useful work is sealing cracks as they appear and seal coating every 2 to 3 years. If we look at your driveway and it needs nothing this year, we will say so and leave you alone.
Whenever cracks open, rather than on a fixed calendar. A crack is a path for water into the granular base, and frost damage needs frost susceptible soil, freezing temperatures and available water together. You cannot change Ottawa's winters, so the crack is the part you control. A crack repair visit generally costs $200 to $500 depending on the extent.
Look at the base rather than the year. The City states pavement age is not a factor in assessing pavement performance and condition is what matters. If the granular is intact and the grade still sheds water, an overlay at $2.50 to $6 per square foot is good value. If the base is soft or the driveway is heaving, an overlay reproduces the problem and a rebuild at $8 to $14 is the honest number.
It can. Stittsville sits toward the Carp Ridge on the western side of the city where ground is shallower and rockier. Shallow rock makes excavation slower and stops water draining downward, so it perches instead. Where we find that, the design answer is grade rather than depth: positive drainage, a grade not exceeding 6 percent and 150 mm of foundation clearance.