Urban home dwellers are fairly used to having paved surfaces all around. Outside of the city, the landscape blends natural soil, gravel, and paved surfaces of both asphalt and concrete. Suburban and rural homeowners often strive for historical accuracy. Sometimes, these homeowners avoid paving driveways for historical accuracy or because of concerns about the cost of the renovation. But paving a gravel, grass, or soil driveway has multiple benefits related to finances and quality of life. Here are four of the strongest reasons to pave.
1. Home Value
One of the first suggestions realtors make to improve the asking price and sellability of a house on the market is to improve the aesthetic look of the outside of the structure. Buyers are often interested in historic homes but still want modern convenience. Concrete and asphalt tend to rate consistently higher than asphalt or soil, especially in families with younger children.
2. Family Activities
Paving a driveway creates more opportunities for recreation. Hardtops provide a surface for a basketball half-court or roller skating. This type of surface also lends itself to larger family gatherings where a grill, lawn chair, or even picnic table can be positioned safely on a level surface. For children, some of whom tend to be accident-prone, a fall is never pleasant. A level surface tends to be safer than the uneven patches found in gravel and soil, where hazards such as glass, insects, and liquids may be present.
3. Car Value
Surface damage to a vehicle can lower the trade-in value by an average of $ 1,000 per model. Flying gravel can cause paint damage and even mechanical damage with sustained driving surface exposure. Even loose rock and sediment on softer surfaces can make contact with both the driven car and parked cars. Drivers who regularly drive on gravel roads report much higher incidences of window chips and cracks than drivers who primarily stick to more urban or paved roads.
4. Snow Removal
Once environmental moisture makes contact with soil, the solid and liquid merge at least minimally, creating unsightly brown slush. Repeated exposure to precipitation, especially snow, can damage a yard in multiple ways, from superficial appearance to the emergence of holes and softer driving surfaces. A paved yard, particularly the driving surface, makes snow removal exponentially easier. Buildup can be removed without damaging grass or requiring the eradication of a layer of gravel to clear the snow.
Paving can be a safer, more aesthetic alternative to loose driveways that neither interferes with historical accuracy nor is cost-prohibitive. Additionally, the service can be completed quickly and easily.
