I just received an estimate to install an asphalt driveway approx 800 sq feet for $10K. This was a "company" that had cheap biz cards and no reviews on the web. I looked at some of the recent cost estimators and it should be no more than around 5K for this area. I think these guys think we are rich (not sure why they think that, our vehicles are extremely modest) And this is in a low end C to C- area.

Guess we will be putting that project on hold. Gravel driveway it is!

6x6 Have no idea. Although DH is an expert on concrete as he once worked as a foreman for a major global concrete company and has poured much of his own, he's getting older now and doesn't any more physical labor than he already is doing.

Tiny note: you want crushed stone. I get mine WITH powder so it solidifies and stays in place.

Gravel (think river rock) is round stones that move around under foot or tire.

I am fine with stone drives. The city uses #9 stone for alleys.

In my area concrete is taxed higher than asphalt is.

Makes no sense as you have to seal asphalt after a while, thus using more resources.

Cement is a lot more expensive. Oil kills asphalt. Salt kills cement.

I had my upper drive drug out and reset with new stone and dust. Had a section where a big hole was come back. They pulled it out, set heavy stone in the bottom and recovered it. Going good for now. Still have sprouts of green come up. I hit them once, but they are persistent.

When I was in my early 40's, most of my contractor friends were pushing 60. The owners no longer did the work themselves, they had employee's for that purpose. Instead the owners only went out to issue estimates.

One friend had two crews with independent tools, trucks and equipment.

That day a small city wanted a bid to pressure was the entire downtown area. Three square blocks. The City had it's own pressure washing machine and 1 employee, who took six months for that one city employee to do the job. By the time the city was done, it has had already been subjected to months of abuse and needed to be redone.

So knowing the facts and having my friends crews fully scheduled for weeks, my friend issued a DOUBLE ESTIMATE for the work. His way of saying he did not want the job and was too booked to do it anyways.

The City was shocked, thinking this guy was so good he could get the job done within 1 week. And accepted the job at double a reasonable price.

My friend then asked me to borrow half of my employee's, my equipment, generators, pressure washers, light trucks, etc. Not for that job but for the jobs his current crews was in the middle of.

In those days, 25 years ago, his bid was $37,000 for 3 square blocks, a 1 week assignment. This two crews did the job in 1-1/2 days. My crews worked on his other two jobs so those customers won't know what was going on.

We've started using crushed asphalt which is generated by the the paving contractors when they groove the pavement prior to a city/state job. Delivered in a dump truck just like stone.

MikeA, have you noticed any tracking with that?

I had an area I wanted to stone. Thought I would use the ground asphalt instead but the hauling company said that if it was an area where we would walk thru it would drag a lot of the tar and such on our shoes.

I am a huge fan of same thing MikeA mentions - here we call it asphalt millings.

We had a little tracking the first year when the temperatures got over 100 degrees but I threw out a few buckets of sand across it and have had no more problems. The bigger problem seems to be stones that work their way loose over time.