Above And Beyond Pavers: There's A Smarter Way To Customize Asphalt Driveways

Asphalt driveways are ubiquitous for good reasons: They are durable, affordable, and easy to maintain. The only drawback is that standard gray or black asphalt lacks visual flair and can look downright dull. Adding concrete or stone pavers is a popular way to elevate the design of a boring old asphalt driveway, but the installation process can be little steep in terms of time and money. Luckily, there's an easier way to make your asphalt driveway pop and end the asphalt vs. paver driveway debate: LED lighting.

Driveway lights and LED strips can increase your home's curb appeal and improve your safety with extra illumination at night. You can also save yourself some time around the holidays and deck your driveway out with seasonally thematic hues by choosing RGB adjustable or tunable white lighting options, along with appropriate control systems. Driveway lights can stand on their own, or complement other asphalt driveway personalizations like stamped designs and custom colors. After lighting up your driveway, you can try other outdoor lighting ideas to brighten up your home.

Before you start dreaming of the perfect array of lighting strips and recessed features, know that the material itself will place limits on some of your design choices. You're somewhat out of luck if you want long lighting channels built directly into the driveway. This is because of the structure of asphalt, which usually consists of 2 to 3 inches of actual asphalt over a base of compacted gravel. Cutting deep trenches, usually 4 to 6 inches deep, to accommodate lengthy LED strips and their metal housings can compromise your asphalt's integrity.

Running LED strips in trenches with a gravel bed flush alongside your asphalt driveway, however, is eminently doable. Just remember your housing channels should be rated at least IP65 for water-resistant protection and at least IP68 to be fully waterproof. And in place of trenches, you can core drill holes to place standalone lighting fixtures into asphalt without compromising integrity.

Asphalt does put some limits on your lighting options compared to concrete or pavers, but you can make your asphalt driveway shine brighter by pairing LED lighting with some clever design choices. Leave boring asphalt driveways behind and get the textured look of pavers in less time, with less money, by stamping unique designs. You can also paint or tint asphalt to save your driveway from boring gray. Combine all three — LED lighting, stamping, and painting — and you'll see you don't need pavers to have the most beautiful driveway in the neighborhood.