Driveway cleaning, sealing & restoration in Macclesfield

A great many drives that people are pricing up to replace only need cleaning, re-sanding and sealing. Block paving in particular ages badly for cosmetic reasons long before it ages structurally: the joints empty, moss establishes in them, weeds follow, and a drive that is dimensionally perfect starts to look like it is finished. Restoring it costs a fraction of relaying it, and it is the first thing an honest contractor should check.

How it is cleaned matters far more than whether it is cleaned. A pressure washer held too close, or a spinning surface cleaner run at full pressure over block paving, blasts the jointing sand straight out of every joint — and blocks with empty joints have lost the interlock that holds them together. That is how a drive can be visibly worse six months after being cleaned than it was before. The correct sequence is clean at a sensible pressure, treat the moss and weed rather than just blasting it, let it dry properly, then re-sand every joint.

Sealing is worth doing on some surfaces and close to pointless on others. Kiln-dried sand stabilisers and block sealers genuinely help hold joints and resist staining. Imprinted concrete depends on its sealer for both colour and durability and needs recoating every few years. Loose gravel cannot be sealed in any meaningful sense, and resin bound does not want a sealer at all — putting a film over a permeable surface removes the one property you paid for.

The other half of maintenance is knowing when to leave it alone. Any sealer or coating painted over a drive that is actually failing underneath just hides the fault and makes the eventual repair harder. If a drive is moving, holding water or cracked right through, a shiny finish on the top does not address a single thing that is wrong with it, and nobody should be selling it as though it does.