Beautifully designed driveway pavers can undoubtedly improve the appearance of your house. If you are entertaining the idea of constructing a driveway in your home, you should have some idea about driveways so that you will know what your requirements should be and can offer ideas to the experts who will be doing the job. It is your driveway, hence you have the right to decide on some issues such as choosing the driveway paving materials. There is a wide array of materials for driveway pavers available on the market, but concrete and asphalt are widely recognized all over the world. Each of the two has positive and negative sides.

An important thing to consider before selecting the paving material for your driveway is if it suitable for the whole family. There are also other factors that will determine your choice like the overall cost, the upkeep and repair expenses, the landscaping and the climate of your region. Driveways play a valuable part in the landscape of the house, hence selecting the paving material that will go well with the landscape design is critical. Since the location of the house is also a huge factor in determining the right paving material you should know if the material is only good in a cold climate, in a hot climate, or both. After the location, consider if the material will be perfect with the surroundings too.

It is important to know all details about the materials for driveway pavers so as not to make the wrong choice. You may start with the details of both concrete and asphalt. Asphalt driveways consist of small stone particles which are then mixed with petroleum. Whereas concrete driveways are made up of poured concrete over a sub base.

If you are not that familiar with concrete and asphalt driveways you would likely believe the misconception that concrete driveways are only available in off-white color and asphalt driveways in black. As a matter of fact, those two types can be obtained in many different colors which are combined with other substances together with various methods. Even so, concrete provides more color choices than asphalt because asphalt lacks the ability to achieve some colors.

Generally concrete driveways are considered to be the most preferred type, the stained and stamped concrete in particular. One of the reasons is due to the fact that asphalt involves the risk of carrying oil stains into the house, since it really has the characteristic of releasing oils. However, if concrete has no oil stain problems then different kind of stains can become easily visible because of its light color.

Asphalt driveways are ideally better in cold regions than in hot climates where they can get soft and have the tendency to create more potholes and cracks. The best choice for hot climates would be concrete driveways since they are resistant to hot temperatures. Constructing a concrete driveway in a cold region needs a base filled with compact gravel that must be strong enough for frost heaving. Lastly, it is not advisable to put salt on the concrete to melt ice, for they can heavily damage the driveway.