Your comments rubbed me the wrong way and you had my comments removed.I did not recieve any reason for it.It is just gone.I just do not like when someone is judged by where they live.Just because someone lives in the right part of town does not make them smarter or have more money.Just like living in a trailer does not make someone trailer trash or a idiot.I live in a nice home on several acres in the country.But before I had this house built I lived in a 14x76 trailer for 5 years.Some of my best friends and relatives live in house trailers.I can not think of one who is not successful.They all get up and go to work everyday or are retired.A few of them never finished Highschool.One of them is my Uncle who lives in a trailer with my Aunt and never finished school.Because he worked to support his family after his dad died.Back in the 30's things were different then today.But he did very well and could buy a Mansion if he really wanted it.

@pingpong: "Does anyone have anecdotal ..." I'm an engineer - not a civil engineer - but I will reiterate what others have told you: The driveway fails because the foundation (class 5 limestone - probably) is failing - due to movement of the earth. Each time the foundation moves - it creates more space for it to move again. Also water seeps into the cracks and errodes the foundation more. This is a fact of nature. If you put a layer of asphalt over the current - you will still have the same foundation. Those cracks will eventually telegraph through the new asphalt. How long it will take? There is no textbook answer. To do it properly, the driveway needs to be removed and the foundation needs to replaced / compacted. As far a concrete cracking... that's why they cut the concrete - to control the stress cracks. It seems like you want a 'magic bullet' answer?

jakefield - there were some cracks in the driveway that were only going to get worse. I'll be honest and say that it was all a great big want and not a need. But we wanted to redo the yard and I couldn't do that with so much concrete. They had a bunch of different kinds of aggregate and concrete on the driveway and the side of the driveway and down to the public strip next to the street. The ground was starving. We took everything out, rerouted the drainpipes under the front courtyard and into the dry creekbed. From Before/After You can see the two drainpipes on each side of the house, the go to the creekbed which is about 3 feet deep and helps keep a lot of the rainwater on the property. (I'm in northern California.) When we planted, the ground was so dead. Not even any worms when we turned the dirt. It's been amazing to see it come back to life. mariposatraicionera I'm not sure what you mean by the lower part, you mean what goes between the street and the sidewalk? If so, yes, we left that alone. Around here most people leave that part concrete unless they are in the ritzy part of town (which we're not.) haha I don't know how the costs compare to concrete. We paid about $14K but we had a TON of concrete removed from the street front and courtyard and the sideyard and the backyard.

I owe him money for a few punch list items, but not enough to cover removal and rebuilding the driveway. My architect (who is really out of the picture at this point but kindly still consulting in these last few issues) says that because the tar and chip was laid over a strong base - my perfectly good asphalt driveway- that it should be very durable. The issue for me is snowplowing and containing the few chips that migrate from the top. I know the contractor is not making money on this job (bad estimating on his part, but to his credit he stuck to the contracts and did beautiful work), so getting him to sink more into the driveway will be next to impossible. I think I'm going to keep relatively quiet until after today when the majority of the punch list should be complete. Then if they disappear I won't be left with two messes.