Crown & Ditch Asphalt · Rilldale · Tanner Flats · drainage-first paving since 1998
Every driveway is a drainage plan that happens to be black.
Services & rates
The drainage rates
Laid rates for Rilldale, Tanner Flats and the Fellwater watershed. Every line already includes reading the fall before pricing the mat — a driveway that holds water was priced wrong no matter what it cost, and the measure exists to keep that from being yours.
New drive, crowned$4.55–5.85 / sq ft
2.5 in in two lifts with tack between, 2% crown cut to the ditch line, edges hand-tamped
Re-grade & overlay$3.85 / sq ft
Milled, leveled, cross-slope restored before the new mat — the fall is the fix, the asphalt just covers it
Ditch & apron workfrom $1,150
Swale cut to carry, apron set to shed, downspout and sump lines tied into the run
Catch basin & curb tiesfrom $680
Basins raised or reset flush, curb line protected and sealed where the mat meets it
Millings lane, crowned$1.95 / sq ft
Bladed and rolled in two lifts with the same two-percent shed as hot mat
The sealcycle on any of it$0.91 / sq ft
Two coats ninety days after any mat we lay, then every third or fourth season
The crown-cut sequence
How water leaves your drive
Five moves, the same on a Tanner Flats barn lane as on a Rilldale court. The asphalt is the last hour of the job; everything before it is where the water goes.
Read the fall
Laser across the run, from the garage door to the ditch. We map where water stands, where it sneaks toward the foundation, and where it is supposed to go but doesn’t.
Cut the crown
Two percent across the middle, one direction or two, graded so the melt sheet-flows off the mat instead of finding a low spot to sit in.
Two lifts, tacked
Binder at an inch and a half, wearing course at an inch, SS-1h between them — the mat is waterproof, but only if the water leaves.
Ditch it
The receiving swale cut, the apron shed, the basin flushed. Water that leaves the mat has to have somewhere to be.
Watch the first rain
The crew that laid it comes back for the first real rain and watches it work. It is in the contract, and it is the best hour we spend on any job.
The four regulars
Questions the rain asks
The four every spring measure starts with — asked by the water as much as by the customer. If yours is not here, the shop line runs seven to five, and the person on it has cut a crown on your road.
What exactly is a crown, and why do you keep saying it?
A crown is the two-percent fall cut across the middle of a mat so water sheet-flows to the edges instead of finding a low spot to sit in. It is graded before the asphalt ever arrives, and it is the difference between a driveway that ages and one that soaks. Every failure we photograph for this site started life as standing water.
Our drive pools right at the garage door. Can that be fixed?
Usually, and usually without a rebuild. The garage apron gets re-pitched to shed away from the door, the mat’s cross-slope is restored, and the water that used to sit against the sill leaves in sheets. The re-grade & overlay line on the card above exists for exactly this — the fall is the fix, the asphalt just covers it.
Can you fix standing water without touching the whole drive?
Sometimes — a birdbath that has not cracked through takes a leveling course and a restored grade in that bay alone. But if the pond is where the base has settled, paving over it is a very tidy bath. The measure tells you which; it costs nothing and it is honest, which is why we lead with it.
Why two percent, specifically?
Because it is the flattest fall that still moves water reliably across asphalt. Flatter and the melt sits; steeper and a driveway starts reading as a ramp, especially with ice on it. Roofs shed harder, roads shed less — a drive lives between the two, and two percent is where the arithmetic lands.
2025 — 2026
Drives that drain, photographed
Six surfaces from the last two seasons, each shot after the first-rain visit. If a photo could show moving water, it would.
Twenty-eight seasons, measured in water
Our old drive poured its melt straight at the garage every March. Crown & Ditch read the fall, cut a two-way crown and tied the downspouts into the new run — the first-rain visit was in the contract, and they stood in it with us. Three springs later the garage is the driest room in the house.
They quoted a re-grade and overlay when everyone else quoted a rebuild, because the base was fine and the fall was broken. The mat followed the grade they cut, water now leaves in sheets, and the invoice was the rate card with our measurements on it.
The millings lane to the barn carries manure spreader loads in April and looks bored about it. Two lifts, crowned the whole run, ditch tied at the low corner — the lane that used to eat a boot now sheds like a roof.
The first-rain visit
Every Crown & Ditch mat, hot or millings, comes with the crew returning for the first real rain after the lay — standing on the wet with you, watching the sheet leave. If water stands where the plan said it would not, the re-grade is ours. Twenty-eight seasons, nine callbacks, all nine re-graded free.
Spring crowns book two weeks out, the day the frost is out · (555) 044-6620 · shop@crownditch.example
Tell us where the water goes now
Address, rough size, and what the drive does when it rains — that last part matters more than the first two. The measure reads the fall, the rates come off the card above, and the first-rain visit is already in the contract. shop@crownditch.example