Disposing of Asphalt From Your DrivewayIf you are planning a do it yourself driveway repair such as the one shown in this picture, one of the things that must be considered as part of the job is disposing of asphalt from your driveway that has been cut out of the driveway. In this case two strips, one on either side along with a half-moon near the garage entrance. This is a lot of asphalt and in our particular case we cut out about 40 cubic feet of asphalt. Cutting the asphalt was relatively easy. We used a skill saw with the proper blade for cutting asphalt. Consumers can rent a larger gas-powered machine that will do the job faster, however, this has a rental cost of approximately $100 vs. a couple of blades for less than $10.

Getting Rid of Asphalt – The Bagster

The original plan was to purchase a product called the bagster,  for a price of $40, fill it and have the company come and pick it up when ready. There were two problems with this approach. First of all the cost for pick up was going to be $200 in addition to the cost of the bag which was $50 including tax. The second problem was that for heavy material, the company requires that only the bottom 10 inches of the bag be filled. As you can see this bag is very full and has about 2 feet of material in it.  This was going to cost much more than planned since I might have to purchase a second bag and the total cost was going to come to around $500!

Disposing of Asphalt – the Solution

Fortunately there was a landscaping contractor working around the block on a neighbors property. He already had the truck and the bobcat and was willing to pick up the material and dispose of it for $150, a net savings of $50, and would also take all of it in one load which saved even more money.

He came over with his team one evening just as they were finishing up with the other property and in the space of 10 minutes it was all gone with the driveway swept up and clean of any sign of the asphalt originally in the bag. Now I am trying to sell the bag at a discount to get some of my $40 back. Either way whether I sell it or not, I have already saved money on this deal.

We wrote about this particular issue to show readers that there is always more than one way to deal with items that might be problematic for do it yourself people. If I had my own truck or a trailer, I would have disposed of the material myself and probably had to pay a dumping fee.

This contractor was already going to the dump and had factored that cost into his current project, so the $150 was pure profit for him and it saved me money as well, definitely a win-win for both of us. This is something else to consider when doing your own work on big projects.

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