What's Destroying The Edges Of Your Driveway?
If you have an asphalt driveway that has crumbling, cracking edges but no other damage, you may have started inspecting the ground around the driveway for signs of erosion, as well as banning people from playing basketball, using skateboards, and so on near the edges. All those can create damage by undermining the asphalt or crushing it (even something as seemingly harmless like playing a little basketball in the driveway can lead to impact damage), but there are other issues that you have to look out for. Some of these affect the edges directly, but sometimes the problem is really in the center of the driveway.
Driving Too Close to the Edges
One of the more obvious problems is that someone may have been parking just a little too close to the edges. The weight of the car can be too much for the asphalt to take if the soil and gravel under the asphalt isn't packed well. If you normally park right near the edge, try to keep your car away from that side for a bit and see if the cracking slows down or stops. You'll still have to repair the cracks soon, but at least you'll know that moving the car will help prevent new cracks from forming.
Too Much Stuff
Related to that is the problem of too much weight on the driveway. Asphalt has a little give to it, but if you park a lot of heavy vehicles in the driveway -- RVs, overloaded SUVs, and so on -- then the weight can be too much. Sometimes this shows up as cracks right by the vehicles, but other times the stress ends up radiating to the edge of the driveway, causing the edges of the asphalt to become uneven or crack.
Weed Whackers and Mowers
If your lawn runs right up to the edge of the driveway, your lawn care routine may be to blame. Weed whackers and mowers can both chew up the thin edges of an asphalt driveway, with the blades or cords hitting the material repeatedly at high speed. Three potential solutions for this are:
- Hand-trim the edge of the lawn
- Redo the edge with decorative stones and mulch that won't damage easily
- When you have the lawn reseeded for the next season, add more soil to raise up the level of the lawn so that it's at or above the level of the asphalt and the mower or whacker doesn't hit the edge.
Get the current damage repaired and then keep an eye on the driveway as you avoid the above situations. If you continue to have problems, have a driveway service come out and inspect the asphalt.