I’m househunting in the hippie-dippie town where I now live, and it’s a challenge - the “average” ($220K) house around here is frequently functionally obsolete, maintenance and groundskeeping is commonly of the “let Mother Earth take back what was once hers” variety, and the locals seem to like it that way.
The typical driveway surface arround here isn’t concrete, asphalt, or paver block. It’s rough gravel or bare dirt, even in denser urban neighborhoods. The rationale: it’s more natural, man.
Anyhow, if I buy a house here, odds are it’s going to have a gravel driveway. What’s been your experience with various types of paving, and their costs? Note that leaving a gravel or dirt driveway alone, or even upgrading to pea gravel, isn’t an option. Gravel/dirt is a dealbreaker, unless the cost of upgrading to a hard surface is manageable.
How big is the typical driveway in the homes you are looking at?
Around here, you’re probably looking at about $3 to $4 per square foot for asphalt and probably double that for concrete. Pavers are a bit more than concrete but not excessively so. Prices may be slightly higher or lower than that in your area.
A fairly minimal parking pad for one car is probably going to be about 10x20 feet, so you’re looking at 200 square feet for that.
A driveway for a single car is going to be 10 feet by maybe 30 to 50 feet, so somewhere between 300 to 500 square feet. A driveway for two cars will be double that width, so 600 to 1000 square feet.
Add in a few hundred bucks more if you want a berm on each side to help channel runoff and provide a better border with the surrounding grass.
So figure roughly the total cost will be maybe $1000 to $1500 or so for a simple concrete single car parking slab up to somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 to $15,000 for a double-wide full-length driveway using pavers.
When I was a teenager I helped my neighbor and his father pour a concrete driveway that was roughly 10x100 feet (it ran beside the house to a garage on the back side of the property). It’s not a particularly fun DIY job as you are constantly racing to get each section done before the concrete starts to harden. Personally, I’d be happy to pay someone else the money to do the work.
