You probably don’t give a lot of thought to your Minnesota home’s driveway. It’s the place where you park your car, and your kids play basketball on the weekends during the warm months. For much of the winter, you spend your time shoveling snow off it. When spring arrives, you need to look for cracks to protect the tires on your cars and ensure no one trips. After a few years, it’s time to replace your driveway.
There are two main choices for driveway material, and these are asphalt and concrete. While both offer benefits, a concrete driveway can transform your Minnesota home and offer an array of benefits. The cost might be a little higher for a concrete driveway rather than an asphalt one, but the benefits outweigh the additional costs. This blog will discuss a few of the ways that a new concrete driveway can benefit your home, such as:
- Adding value
- Enhancing curb appeal
- Higher quality end result
- Matching your neighbors
- Environmentally friendly
- Minimum maintenance requirements
- Impressive lifespan and durability
Add Value to Your Home
When you build a new concrete driveway, you’re adding to your home’s resale value. The recent addition of a driveway increases the value of your home because the new homeowners won’t need to replace it for decades. This type of improvement also highlights the care and maintenance that you’ve given to your home and property.
Also, concrete driveways last longer than asphalt ones, and a prospective homeowner or appraiser will factor the type of driveway into the overall price of your home. If you’re planning to sell your home in the near future, you may find that it’s easier to sell with a new concrete driveway instead of an asphalt one, because it’s visually more appealing and longer-lasting.
Increase Your Minnesota Home’s Curb Appeal
When someone drives by your home or stops by for a visit, their first impression of you and your home is the way the yard, driveway, and exterior of your home looks. This is the theory of curb appeal at work. If you have an old, cracked asphalt driveway, your curb appeal could use a little work.
A concrete driveway is elegant and beautiful, which is why it increases your home’s curb appeal. It offers a smooth finish and soothing neutral color, which a black asphalt driveway lacks. In many cases, a concrete driveway makes your home look better and shows that you care for your home and property.
Enjoy a Better Value
After looking at the price point for an asphalt driveway and a concrete driveway, you might think that asphalt is the better value. The price for a concrete driveway is almost always higher than an asphalt one, but this doesn’t reflect the cost of the driveway over time.
You’ll discover that over the years that you save money on maintenance offsets the initial expense of concrete over asphalt. Also, you won’t need to replace a concrete driveway as quickly as you’ll need to replace an asphalt one. These factors make a concrete driveway the better value for your property.
Compatible With Other Properties in Your Neighborhood
While you want your home and yard to stand out for their beautiful landscape and trendy front porch, you want compatibility in other areas. In Minnesota and the Twin Cities area, many of the homes and neighborhoods feature concrete driveways. Some homeowner’s associations (HOAs) require concrete driveways for all the homes in their subdivision.
Even if your HOA doesn’t require a concrete driveway, you want to maintain a similar driveway to the others in your neighborhood. Opting for a different kind of driveway, such as an asphalt one, might lower your home value and make it less appealing if you try to sell it.
Environmentally Friendly
If you’re like many people, you’re paying attention to your carbon footprint, and you want to opt to work with eco-friendly companies and choose materials and options that offer a lower carbon footprint. A concrete driveway offers a lower carbon footprint than asphalt.
The energy required to create and install concrete is considerably lower than that used for asphalt. One of the biggest differences is the fact that asphalt needs to be heated to incredibly high temperatures before installation, and this takes a lot of energy that increases its carbon footprint. Also, you’ll need a new asphalt driveway long before you’ll need to replace a concrete one, which also increases the necessary energy output.
Low Maintenance Requirements
If you invest in a clear coat sealer when you install your concrete driveway, you won’t need to worry about maintenance like you would an asphalt driveway. With an asphalt driveway, the material begins to dry out almost immediately which can lead to cracking and other damage.
Compared to an asphalt driveway, a concrete driveway requires minimal maintenance once you opt for the sealer. An asphalt driveway requires a sealer to protect the material and to keep it from drying on completely in a few years. You want a driveway that doesn’t require yearly maintenance, and a concrete driveway fits the bill.
Long-Lasting and Durable
Most concrete driveways will last two decades longer than ones made from asphalt. You can expect your concrete driveway to last for 50 years or longer while one made from asphalt only lasts around 30 years, which means you’ll need to replace an asphalt driveway almost twice as often as a concrete one.
When you weigh the costs of the two types of driveway material, this should be a factor in your final decision. Also, concrete can handle a lot more weight without damage than an asphalt driveway. If a material with a high load-bearing capability is important to you, it’s always best to choose concrete over asphalt.
A Concrete Driveway Is Your Best Option
When the time arrives that you need a new driveway, you’ll hear recommendations from everyone. Both asphalt and concrete make excellent material for your new driveway, but a concrete driveway can transform your Minnesota home.
From an increase in curb appeal and resale value to long-lasting durability and low maintenance, a concrete driveway is a great option for your home. Richfield Concrete is ready to install your new driveway and offer you outstanding customer service. Contact us today!
