Permeable driveways are driveways that allow water to drain through them as opposed to your traditional asphalt driveways. This can be achieved in a lot of different ways, but typically the cheapest and easiest way to create one of these driveways is with pavers. First, there is a layer of crushed rocks and sand that is laid and tamped down for filtration. Then, the pavers are installed on top. The cracks in between the pavers allow water to seep down and the layer of rocks and sand then handle the filtration part of the process. It’s a simple and straightforward design that works.

You might ask why it’s a good idea to have a permeable driveway installed – the thought of needing a different solution to a driveway that’s always worked “just fine” obviously isn’t something that would occur to most people. It turns out though, that traditional driveways come with some issues. First and foremost, they cause some drainage issues that are bad for me and the world I live in. Water runs off of the driveway and floods my yard (which is never nice) and that runoff carries all sorts of toxins and fluids from my car that are bad for the environment. Traditional asphalt driveways have a much shorter lifespan and are more difficult to fix than a driveway assembled with pavers. It’s much easier to pop a paver out and replace it than to call someone out to re-asphalt my cracked driveway. The upfront cost on one of these permeable driveways is typically more than you would pay for an asphalt driveway, but over the years it will end up saving you money in just repairs alone.  A concrete driveway is definitely a very durable option, but if the concrete slab ends up breaking, that is going to be an expensive repair, to say the least. Also, concrete driveways are more expensive as far as the initial installation – and then there’s the whole waiting seven days for it to dry-thing that comes along with having one of those installed.