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This is a great video on how to properly use Pli Stix.

Buy Pli-Stix today and quit wasting money with ineffective products.

For More information, read Pli-Stix, hot crack sealing solution for homeowners

For your driveway repair needs, order Pli-Stix today

The best crack sealing product you could use is a hot applied crack sealer that bonds to the surface.

Most crack fillers are cold applied. While they are easy to use, they do not hold up nearly as well as a hot crack sealer.

Enter, Pli-Stix.

Pli Stix is a hot applied crack sealer designed for the do-it-yourselfer.

Pli-Stix gives you contractor style results without the contractor price. Benefits include,

• 30 foot of crack sealer in one package
• Usable on cracks up to 1 inch wide
• It is hot applied, so it properly bonds to the sidewalls of the crack.
• It expands and contracts with the freeze/thaw cycles, making the job last longer.

Using Pli Stix could not be easier. Cut to length, place in crack, and heat with a torch.

Use it to fill stubborn cracks, fill the gap between your driveway and garage, or fill the sawcuts in your concrete driveway.

Until now, you had to hire a professional to hot pour crack fill your driveway. Contractor tools to hot crack fill are messy and can leave rubber strings all over your driveway.

Pli-Stix fixes this. Since you cut it to length, there is no waste or mess. The crack sealer goes where YOU want it to go.

Order Pli-Stix today and get a professional job for a bargain price.

For more information, check out Pli Stix on Amazon.com.

Now that you have decided to sealcoat your driveway, you need to know how to estimate your material usage before you order the product.

Before I go into details, I need to give you a disclaimer. In no way is this a 100% guarantee on coverage rates. Coverage rates will vary from job to job, and is dependant on many different factors.

Here are those common factors so you can keep them in mind.

Has your driveway been sealed before?

If it has, your material coverage will improve slightly. If it has not, you will use more material. The increased material usage is due to the driveway sealer filling any voids from the paving process.

How many cracks in your driveway?

By this, I do not mean small “spider web” cracks (although they will use some extra sealer). I refer to the bigger cracks. Sealing your driveway without filling the cracks can use extra sealer, unless you take measures to avoid letting the driveway sealer fall into the crack (or if you believe the driveway sealer will act as a proper crack sealer). Proper crack filling will help reduce material usage.

How is the surface?

If it is very smooth, it will use a lot less sealer (and if it is really slick, you probably do not need to seal). If it is very rough, it will use more.

The baseline formula is as follows:

Figure your square footage (Length X Width). Divide that number by 9 to come up with your square yardage (round this number up to the next whole number). Multiply your square yardage by .17 (17%).

In most cases that number will get you relativly close. If you have doubts, buy one 5 gallon pail more than needed (but check out the return policy beforehand.) Any extra sealer can be saved and used to touch up spots, or maybe give a second coat to areas prone to oil drips. Just remember that you need to keep driveway sealer from freezing if you save it to touch up spots later.

I will give you an example. Lets assume you have a driveway that is 50 foot long, and 20 foot wide. Your square footage is 50 x 20, or 1000 square feet. Divide 1000 feet by 9, which gives us 111.11 square yards. We round that up to 112 yards and multiply that by .17. We come up with 19.04 gallons of sealer, so we order 4 buckets.

This number is not absolute, but it will get you reasonably close for one coat. If you double coat your driveway you can expect a 10-15% coverage rate (multiply your square yards by .1 to .15) on your second coat.

I had plans to discuss other topics today, but a news story out of Toledo has changed my mind.

I will not go into details over the story, minus to say that there will definitely be an increase of scammers in the industry this year, with everyone worrying about maintaining what they have instead of putting in new.

The usual scam starts out with a stranger knocking on your door. He will then start with the line “Hi, there. I was doing a job down the street and we have some extra materials that we will use them on your driveway for a bargain price!” Usually this price is FAR from a bargain. I have heard stories, locally, of prices being as much as ten times the usual cost or even higher.

This scam is fairly universal to the whole Home Improvement business environment. The line is easily changed from asphalt, to concrete, to sealer, to shingles, etc. The usual target are the elderly, who are usually unable to do the repairs or maintenance themselves.

The easiest way to avoid this scam is to turn down any of these offers. Most contractors will schedule work in advance, and in most cases left over materials can be reused on the next job (especially with driveway sealer.) All of these scams rely on the marketing tactic of this being a one time offer… if you tell him no, he will never offer it again. In most cases it is in your best interest to not take this offer.

Unfortunately, it is these people who ruin the industry for many of the hard working laborers who aim to do things the right way. One bad experience is usually all it takes to turn someone willing to pay for the work, into someone who will do the work themselves from now on.

Avoid any issues, and turn down any “leftover” offer.

With the economy in trouble, and everyone wanting to save a little money, it is time to emphasise a maintenance schedule instead of letting your asphalt go.

Asphalt, as a popular surface for roads and driveways, has many enemies. The rain erodes the stone, the ice helps crack it open, and the snow leads to the use of chemicals that can tear your driveway apart. The sun and wind also add to these problems.

There IS a solution.

Start a maintenance schedule to protect your driveway. The first six months to a year is needed for your new asphalt driveway to properly cure, afterwards you should start a driveway sealing ritual. The time-frame needed between coats really depends upon the quality of the sealer, and the quality of the work. In general, every 2-4 years.

By saying this, I know I will upset some of the more shady contractors, but a yearly regime is NOTbest. Yearly applications will lead to troubles down the road, including: Peeling, chipping, and surface cracking. Most contractors try to sell you on a yearly schedule simply because they rely on the yearly work, and quite a few will give you a really thin, watered down, coat to emphasise this. Any honest contractor builds his business around a 3 year schedule.

If you absolutely cannot afford to implement a maintenance schedule, the most important coat that you can apply is the first. This first coat fills any pores left from the paving process and keeps them from forming cracks in the future.

In the case that your asphalt is in really bad shape, but you cannot afford to have it paved this year, I would advise you to just leave it alone. Sealing your driveway when it is in bad shape will not add any benefit besides a cosmetic one. A coat of driveway sealer on a driveway in bad shape will take a lot of extra material as well. Save any money for the paving job instead.

A maintenance schedule for your asphalt driveway can save you much more money in the long run. It is much cheaper to protect your investment now, than to pay to have it all done over again later.