Home buyers rarely turn away from visually appealing living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms, spaces that are filled with comfortable furniture, the kind many people only dream about owning. Even if people shopping for gorgeous homes don’t make an immediate purchase, they enjoy exploring the residences. However, it’s not the interior that pulls home buyers through the front door. It’s the exterior of the home, front walkway, lawn and driveway that persuade shoppers to enter a house.
In fact, Yahoo! Homes shares that among the 10 factors that could reduce the value of your home are lack of curb appeal, your home’s exterior, wasted space and design projects gone awry. It also states in the Yahoo! Homes article that, “Just as a buyer will notice the front gardens, they will also notice the disrepair of the outside of your home.”
Chipped paint on the outside of your home, dirty windows and cracks in your driveway can erode your home’s overall value even if the interior of your home is beautiful. Fortunately, you can generally fix these issues yourself by washing the windows and painting your home. Repairing cracks in an asphalt driveway requires several steps including cleaning out the cracked area, flushing the area with an asphalt hose and filling the cracks using an emulsion crack filler.
Steps to repairing cracks in your driveway
Outdoor temperatures should be at least 45 degrees before you use an asphalt hose to remove cracks from a driveway. Also, wait until rain isn’t expected where you live for at least three days. It’s also important to avoid getting the sealant or repair compound you use on your skin. A good way to achieve this is to wear gloves while repairing driveway cracks.
After you remove dirt and debris from the driveway using an asphalt hose, allow the area to dry before you apply the sealant. Depending on the sealant you use, you might have to mix or shake the sealant before you apply it to the cracks. Place the sealant in the cracks in thin layers instead of in large chunks. Your driveway should be even, not raised in areas due to your having applied too much repair compound or sealant.
Expect it to take at least 24 hours for the sealant to dry. The entire process of repairing cracks takes about two to two and a half hours. Other than gloves and an asphalt hose, other tools or supplies generally needed to repair cracks in driveways are a broom, a steel tamper and a sealant application brush. Also, note that you may have to repair your driveway every two to three years. However, if you check your driveway for cracks, especially after hard or long rains, you can keep the surface smooth and even, the type of driveway that adds curb appeal to a home.
Of course, if you’re in the process of selling your home, a smooth driveway could attract more buyers to park in your driveway and check out the rest of your home, especially the interior. By taking care of your driveway and other exterior parts of your home, you could also keep the value of your house comparable to the value of other houses in the area where you live.
