Standing water ends every driveway early.

Why a puddle is not cosmetic

Asphalt is porous. Water standing on it works through the surface and into the granular base. Interlock joints are designed to shed water, not sit under it.

Once the base is saturated, freeze-thaw does the rest — expansion, lifting, voids, and eventually alligator cracking or shifting pavers directly around the low spot. Almost every driveway failure we assess has a ponding area at the centre of it.

The three causes

The driveway was never graded correctly. It was laid flat or with less than the 2% minimum fall. Common on surfaces replaced without re-establishing the slope.

It has settled. The grade was fine originally and a section has since dropped — usually over uncompacted fill, often near the garage or a service trench.

There is nowhere for the water to go. The driveway drains correctly but the low point discharges onto flat ground, a raised garden bed, or a neighbouring grade that pushes water back.

Which fix applies

Regrading or an overlay with corrected fall works when the base is sound and the problem is shape. The cheapest of the three.

A drain at the low point — a trench drain or catch basin piped to a suitable discharge — works when the driveway cannot be sloped, which is common on flat lots and where the garage sits below street level.

Rebuilding the low section is necessary when settlement is the cause, because anything laid over settling fill settles with it.

We probe and shoot levels before quoting, because the three differ substantially in cost and guessing wrong wastes your money.

Questions