Driveway range By ANDREA ESTRADA Although driveways spend most of their lives hidden beneath parked cars, trucks and the occasional motor home, they generally comprise a large percentage of a property’s visible front yard and as such should maintain a certain aesthetic level. An attractive driveway can add value to your home much the same way a nice paint job or landscaping does. While some homeowners opt for asphalt, the most inexpensive paving option, other choose plain concrete or even make their driveways a kind of outdoor art with colorful interlocking pavers, pressed concrete or flagstone. Paved driveways fall into one of three categories: asphalt, concrete, or paving stone. Paving stone can be brick, cobblestones, flagstone or the concrete pavers. At about $20 per square foot, flagstone is the most expensive of the paving options, while concrete at about $10 per square foot, is the most economical. Asphalt is a little cheaper but doesn’t last as long as concrete or stone and requires more maintenance. Interlocking pavers are made from cement combined with fine and course aggregates to which color has been added. The joints between the pavers help eliminate the cracking common to conventional concrete and asphalt pavements. “The labor on pavers is probably triple than that with a concrete pour,” said Eric Singson, owner of Best Landscape in Santa Barbara. “You have to prepare the soil the same for both, but pouring concrete takes a day. Pavers take a few days.” While asphalt has a lifespan of 15 to 20 years, you can expect interlocking pavers to last for 20 to 25 years, stone or brick for 20 to 100 years and concrete for 25 to 30. “If they’re put down right, (pavers) can last a while,” Singson continued. “But Goleta has expansive soil that expands when it gets wet and pushes the pavers all over the place.” In the Santa Barbara area, where homeowners don’t have to consider weather issues when deciding how to pave their driveways, cost and aesthetics take priority. Some want the look of multicolored interlocking paving stones and are willing to foot the bill for the labor involved in preparing the area, setting the stones and covering them with a protective sealant. A stamped concrete job, such as the one Michael and Colomba Carbajal had done on the driveway of their Goleta home, can offer the look of custom work but without the price tag. Fans of flagstone, they called on contractor Salvador Reyes to create the faux finish. Using concrete colored to match the hue of sandstone, Reyes formed a series of flat, irregularly shaped sections. While they were still wet, he pressed a piece of fabric over each one to achieve a rough-hewn finish. When the sections were dry, he placed them on the prepared driveway in a bed of concrete. Continuing the natural look elsewhere in the yard, Reyes constructed a border that separates the driveway from the lawn and used molds to manufacture faux sandstone he used to create a frame for the Carbajal’s mailbox. Stamped concrete paving begins with a foundation of freshly poured concrete. Before it sets, color is worked into the material and a layer of color hardener is applied to the entire slab. A layer of a release agent, which keeps stamping tool from bonding with the wet concrete, follows. Then the desired textured pattern is stamped into the uncured concrete with rubber mats. When the slab dries, excess release agent is washed off, the concrete is cleaned and then a sealant is applied to provide stain and weather resistance. If you want to stick with asphalt or concrete because the cost factor, look into some of the special treatments such as that available from Integrated Paving Concepts, Inc. The Vancouver, Canada-based company licenses contractors to use its patented StreetPrint process. Wire templates are pressed into hot asphalt and create the look of brick or stone. A polymer cement compound applied as a top layer provides color and serves as a hardener and sealant. Other companies, such as the Bomanite Corporation based in Madera, Calif., offer cast-in-place colored and imprinted concrete paving that features an imprinted pattern and a smooth surface between the joint lines. Texturized concrete can resemble brick, flagstone or cobblestones.