Macomb County takes in Warren, Sterling Heights, St. Clair Shores, Roseville and Clinton Township near the lake, and Macomb and Shelby townships to the north. Everything here drains toward Lake St. Clair, and several of its cities have unusually specific rules about what a driveway may be made of and who may work on it. Some of those rules matter for asphalt more than you might expect.
Warren, Sterling Heights, St. Clair Shores, Roseville, Eastpointe, Fraser, Clinton Township, Mount Clemens, Harrison Township, Chesterfield, Macomb Township, Shelby Township, Utica and Washington Township. If your address is in the county and not listed, send it.
Macomb County has about 32 miles of Lake St. Clair coastline, and 31 miles of the Clinton River cross it. Its public works office manages 475 county drains, every one of which ends up carrying storm water into the lake. For a driveway owner the point is simple: this is low, flat, wet ground, and a drive that cannot shed water to the street or a drain keeps it underneath.
That shows up as the dips that stay dark after rain, the approach that holds a sheet of ice in February, and the soft spot where a downspout empties beside the garage. Sealer does not change any of that. When the quote finds it, it says whether the answer is a patch, a regrade at the next replacement, or simply moving the downspout.
The Macomb County Department of Roads maintains more than 1,700 miles of the county's 4,400 miles of road, including about 335 miles of gravel. Inside subdivisions it applies salt only at entrances, exits, intersections and hills, and it starts subdivision plowing at four inches of snow. So a subdivision drive usually sees less salt from its own street than one on a main road, and more packed snow and ice that melts and refreezes on sunny days. Both end in the same place: water in cracks through the winter.
Several cities here want the approach at the street built in concrete, and plenty of drives behind it are asphalt. The seam between the two is the weak point. Concrete and asphalt expand and shrink by different amounts as the temperature moves, so the joint opens a little more each winter, and the snow the plow leaves across the end of the drive melts straight into it. Left open, the asphalt edge along that seam crumbles and drops below the concrete, and a tyre catches it every time a car turns in.
That joint gets cleaned out and filled with the other cracks before the drive is sealed, and if the edge has already broken down it is cut back and patched so the two surfaces meet level again.
Not under the city's current rules, which call for poured concrete to the garage. Existing asphalt can be maintained.
Warren says the driveway between the sidewalk and the house or garage needs no permit.
Yes. A signed paving maintenance notice goes to the township before sealing starts.
Nearby: Oakland County to the west and Wayne County to the south west.
