Asphalt Paving in Casper, WY

Asphalt paving in Casper is built around winter. The city sits around 5,120 feet. A normal winter drops 71.8 inches of snow, January nights bottom out near 15 degrees, and on roughly 41 days the thermometer stays below 32 all day. The city's own construction criteria put the frost line at three feet, the air freezing index at 3,000 and the weathering risk at severe. Every one of those freeze-thaw swings pulls at the pavement. Water from melting snow seeps into cracks and base rock, freezes, expands and lifts. A driveway or lot that stays dry underneath survives it. One that holds water breaks up within a few seasons.

A thicker, better-drained base

On most jobs, the base is what matters. HomeGuide describes a typical home driveway as 6 to 8 inches of compacted gravel under 2 to 3 inches of asphalt, and 8 to 10 inches of base under 3 to 4 inches of asphalt for heavier vehicles. In Casper, where pickups, trailers and service trucks are common, we often build toward the heavier end. We dig out soft or wet soil, place and compact crushed base in lifts and grade the surface so snowmelt runs off instead of soaking in.

Snow, plows and ice

Snow piles along a driveway melt on sunny afternoons and refreeze overnight. If that meltwater runs across the pavement, it leaves ice and fills cracks. We set the slope so meltwater goes to the yard, the gutter or a ditch. Plow blades and tire chains scrape the surface and chip edges, so street-side edges get a firm, well-compacted shoulder.

Sun and wind

Casper also gets more than 3,300 hours of sunshine a year and about 38 days a year at 90 degrees or hotter. The city designs homes for wind gusts of 115 mph. The sun bakes the binder out of the surface and the wind sandblasts what is left. Seal coating every few years and filling cracks every fall are the two habits that most extend the life of asphalt here.

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Working in the city right-of-way

The City of Casper requires a curb-cut permit to remove curb or curb-walk to place a driveway, and a street-cut permit to dig up, break or remove any part of a street, street right-of-way or alley. The street-cut permit requires a surety bond of at least $5,000 or a deposit equal to the estimated construction cost, plus liability insurance. If your project touches the curb, the street or the alley, we tell you at the estimate which permit is involved.

Short season, careful timing

Hot asphalt has to be placed and rolled while it is hot enough to compact. On cold ground it stiffens too soon. Casper's paving season runs roughly from late spring to early fall. Seal coat needs dry pavement and temperatures between about 50 and 95 degrees. We book early-season work as soon as the ground warms and keep late-season jobs moving before the first hard freeze.

What we build

• New and replacement asphalt driveways
• Shop aprons, equipment yards and RV pads
• Parking lots for businesses, churches and apartments
• Gravel-to-asphalt conversions on rural and edge-of-town lots
• Pothole patching and repairs
• Crack filling and seal coating

Casper is our home base. We work across Natrona County in Mills, Evansville, Bar Nunn, Red Butte, Homa Hills and on Casper Mountain, out to Midwest, Edgerton, Alcova and Powder River, and east into Converse County in Glenrock, Rolling Hills and Douglas. Elevation, ground and road ownership change across that area. Some properties front city streets, some front county roads and some front state highways, and each has its own rules for driveway work at the road. The town pages cover what is local.