Asphalt Paving in Penn Hills, PA

Most requests we get for asphalt paving in Penn Hills come from homes built during one short burst. The township had 25,280 residents in 1950, then 51,512 in 1960 and 62,886 in 1970, according to census figures on Wikipedia. That is a huge amount of housing, and a huge amount of driveway, laid down in about twenty years. The population was 41,059 in 2020, and many of those original driveways have been patched, sealed and overlaid more than once. At some point the layers run out of life, and that is usually when we are called.

How to tell what your driveway needs

When we look at a Penn Hills driveway, the first question is whether the stone base underneath is still doing its job. A surface that is gray and cracked in a web pattern but still flat can often take a new overlay. A driveway with ruts in the tire paths, broken edges and sections that sink after rain has a base problem, and putting fresh asphalt over it only hides the failure for a season or two. In that case we remove the old pavement, dig out soft spots, add and compact new stone and pave fresh.

Many older drives here also have several overlays stacked on top of each other, which raises the surface until it sits above the garage slab or creates a lip at the street. Milling or removing those layers lets us put the grade back where it belongs.

Creeks, valleys and runoff

Penn Hills covers about 19.36 square miles and is crossed by a long list of streams: Plum Creek along the Plum border, Sandy Creek, Thompson Run on the Monroeville side, Quigley Run, Duffs Run and Shades Run along the city line, with the Allegheny River on the north edge. All that water runs through valleys, which means a lot of homes sit on slopes above them. Driveways on sloped lots need to shed water to the side or to the street instead of letting it run the full length of the pavement. We set the crown or cross-slope so it does.

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Neighborhoods with their own character

The township lists more than twenty neighborhoods, including Rosedale, Lincoln Park, Universal, Valemont Heights, Crescent Hills, Eastmont, Laketon Heights and Frankstown Estates. Older sections tend to have single-car drives and tight setbacks, while later plans have two-car drives and wider aprons. We size the job to the lot, not to a template.

State roads and permits

Several of the busiest roads in Penn Hills are state routes: PA 380 along Frankstown and Saltsburg Roads, PA 791 on Rodi Road and PA 130 on Allegheny River Boulevard. PennDOT's minimum-use driveway fact sheet says a Highway Occupancy Permit is needed before installing or altering a driveway within PennDOT right-of-way, along with a letter from the municipality approving the location. If your driveway meets one of these roads and the work reaches the apron, we sort out which agency to contact before we schedule. For township roads, we check with the municipality.

Lots and shared drives

We also patch, overlay, sealcoat and restripe church lots, small business lots and shared driveways serving two or three homes. Call (412) 796-9361 to set up a visit anywhere in Penn Hills.