Should you seal your driveway after cleaning?
Seal it if the surface is porous and you want the clean to last — concrete, pavers and exposed aggregate all drink up oil and algae once the pores are open. Sealing after a wash resists staining and stretches the interval between cleans. Not every driveway needs it. Schmick pressure cleans driveways from $180, and sealing is offered as a set add-on, not a hidden line.
Sealing is the step that makes the clean hold
A pressure clean strips the surface back. That is also the moment it is most exposed. Wash off years of algae, oil and grime and you open the pores that were, in a rough way, plugged. Bare concrete is thirsty. The next oil drip, the next wet fortnight of shade, and the staining starts again from a clean base. Sealing closes those pores while the surface is dry and open, which is the only sensible time to do it.
The payoff is not cosmetic gloss — it is resistance. A sealed driveway sheds oil instead of drinking it, and algae struggles to key into a surface that no longer holds water in its face. That resistance is what stretches the interval between washes. An unsealed driveway in a shaded, damp spot might need doing every year. Seal it and you often push that out, because the growth has less to grab. You are buying time, not shine.
Concrete, pavers and exposed aggregate each behave differently
Plain concrete is the classic case for sealing. It is porous, it stains readily, and a penetrating sealer sinks in and holds. Pavers are a mixed bag: the units themselves may be dense, but the sand-filled joints between them are where weeds and moss live. Here sealing does double duty — it firms the joint sand and slows regrowth in the gaps that actually cause the mess. If your driveway is forever sprouting green lines, the joints are the problem, not the pavers.
Exposed aggregate is the one people ask about most. All that pebbled texture is surface area, and surface area is where dirt and algae settle. A sealer on aggregate both protects and, depending on the product, lifts the stones visually so the finish reads sharp rather than dusty. The trade-off is that a sealed aggregate surface can be slightly slicker when wet, so the right product and a matte finish matter. Smooth, dense, near-sealed surfaces — some tiles, some engineered pavers — may need nothing at all.
Not every driveway is worth sealing
This is where we stay honest. If your surface is already dense and non-porous, sealing it is spending money to change very little. If a driveway sits in full sun, drains well and never grows anything, the wash alone may carry it for years. Sealing does not fix cracks, it does not lift deep-set rust or old paint, and it will not rescue a slab that is failing structurally. It resists new staining — it does not reverse the surface's history.
We also will not seal over a problem. If the concrete is spalling or the pavers are lifting, a sealer traps the fault rather than solving it. The candour cuts both ways: sometimes the answer is seal it and buy two extra years, and sometimes it is clean it, leave it, and put the money elsewhere. We would rather tell you which one you are looking at than add a coat you did not need.
An add-on you choose, never a surprise
Sealing is offered as a set add-on on the driveway job — a plain, priced option you can take or leave, not a figure that appears once the truck has left. Driveway and path pressure cleaning starts at $180, and most driveways land between $180 and $420 by area. The seal is quoted alongside that so you see both numbers before you decide, and you decide with the surface type in front of you rather than a sales line.
The Schmick instant quote returns a firm, bookable price in about 60 seconds — tell it your driveway and whether you want the seal, and the number holds unless the place is materially different from what you described. Bundling the driveway with a house wash or the gutters on one visit saves 5 to 15 percent, so it is worth pricing the whole exterior in one go. Get your exact figure, sealing included, before you commit to anything.