Exposed aggregate is concrete with its surface removed. The stone was always in the mix; washing the top layer of cement away before it fully hardens is what brings it out. That single difference — taking material off rather than pressing a pattern in — is what separates it from every other decorative finish, and it drives everything else about how the driveway looks, feels and wears.
A standard driveway is poured, levelled and given a broom finish, and the smooth cement paste at the top is the surface you end up walking on. An exposed aggregate driveway is poured the same way and then treated differently before it cures. A retarder slows the set of the very top layer, and once the concrete beneath has taken hold, that top layer is washed and brushed off. What is left behind is the stone that was in the mix all along, sitting slightly proud of the surface.
The consequence worth understanding is that there is no coating involved. Nothing has been applied to the driveway and nothing sits on top of it, which means there is no applied layer that can wear through, peel or flake off over the years. The surface you have on the day it is finished is the same material the full depth of the slab is made from. That is a genuinely different proposition from a finish that relies on a colour or a coating to look the way it does.
With most decorative concrete, the look is chosen from a catalogue of patterns. With exposed aggregate, the look is chosen by deciding what stone goes into the mix. Size, colour and type of aggregate are the whole aesthetic conversation, and it is worth having properly before the pour rather than after.
Smaller stone, more densely packed, reads as a fine even texture from a distance and is the more common residential choice. Larger stone gives a coarser, more obviously geological surface with more visual variation across the driveway. Colour depends entirely on what the stone actually is, which is why exposed aggregate tends to look like what it is — stone — rather than an imitation of something else. Two driveways poured on the same street with different aggregate will not resemble each other much.
How much of the stone is revealed is a second variable. A light wash leaves the aggregate barely proud of the surface; a deeper exposure brings more of each stone out and produces a more pronounced texture. That is a decision made on site, and it is worth being specific about what you want rather than leaving it to be settled during the wash.
The practical argument for exposed aggregate is grip. Because the surface is stone standing slightly above the plane of the slab rather than a smooth trowelled or stamped finish, it gives a foot and a tyre something to hold onto, wet or dry. On a level suburban driveway that is a nice-to-have. On a lot with a fall to it, it stops being incidental.
A driveway that climbs to a garage, or drops from the road toward a house, is a surface people walk down in February carrying things. Ontario winters put water on that surface and then freeze it. A textured finish does not eliminate that problem — nothing does — but there is a real difference underfoot between stone texture and a smooth slab, and it is the reason the finish comes up as often as it does on sloped properties.
Two caveats worth stating plainly. Texture makes shovelling marginally more work than a smooth surface does, because a shovel rides differently on it. And no finish is a substitute for grading: water still has to be sent somewhere deliberate, off the surface and away from the garage and foundation, and that is decided by the pitch of the slab, not by what the top of it looks like.
Because there is no applied surface layer, exposed aggregate does not have the particular failure mode where a coating wears thin in the wheel tracks and the driveway starts to look tired in two strips. What wears is stone, and stone wears slowly.
What it does want is sealing, and for a specific reason: the textured surface has more nooks in it than a smooth slab, so it holds onto dirt, oil and stains more readily. A sealer is mostly about keeping the surface cleanable and keeping the stone looking like stone rather than looking grey. It also helps against the road salt that gets tracked onto every Ontario driveway through the winter. Resealing is periodic rather than frequent, and how often depends on exposure, traffic and how much salt the driveway sees.
Underneath all of that, the thing that actually determines whether the driveway lasts is not the finish at all. It is whether the base was built to move water away before it freezes there. A beautifully finished slab on ground that traps water will crack in the same way and on the same schedule as a plain one. The finish is what you see; the base is what decides.
Against a plain broom finish, exposed aggregate costs more and looks considerably less like a slab of grey concrete. The durability difference is smaller than people expect, because both are the same material underneath — the aggregate version simply has its texture revealed rather than trowelled over.
Against stamped concrete, the difference is one of approach rather than quality. Stamped presses a pattern into the surface and adds colour, producing something that imitates flagstone, brick or cobble; the colour and the sealer are part of what you are looking at, and they are the parts that need attention over time. Exposed aggregate removes material to reveal what is underneath, so what you are looking at is the stone itself. If you want a driveway that reads as stone, aggregate does it directly. If you want a driveway that reads as laid flagstone, stamping is the technique that gets there.
Against interlocking pavers, the trade is joints. Pavers are individually laid units with sand joints between them, which can shift, settle unevenly or grow weeds over the years, but which can also be lifted individually and reset. Exposed aggregate is one continuous slab — no joints to shift, and no individual units to lift either.
We do not publish prices. On a lead-generation site, a figure quoted here is not a figure anyone has stood on your property and committed to, and posting one would imply a promise the job cannot be held to. What we can be specific about is what moves the number.
Area is the largest factor and the most obvious. Removal is next: whether there is an existing driveway to break out and haul away, and what it is made of. Aggregate choice matters — stone is not all priced alike, and a specialty aggregate costs more than a common one. Access affects the labour: a lot where a truck can reach the pour is a different job from one where the concrete has to be moved. Base condition is the variable nobody can price from a photograph, because it is not visible until the ground is open, and it is the one that most often changes a quote. Site conditions such as slope or drainage work add where they apply.
The quote comes in writing after someone has measured the driveway and seen what is under it.
We pour exposed aggregate driveways across the province. The texture is worth particular consideration on sloped lots — these are areas where a fall between the road and the house is common:
Grimsby · Thorold · Collingwood · Hamilton · Peterborough · Toronto · Mississauga · Ottawa · St. Catharines · Barrie
It is a concrete driveway with the top layer of cement washed off before it fully cures, revealing the stone that was already in the mix. Nothing is applied to the surface — material is taken off it.
It has more texture underfoot, because the stone sits slightly proud of the surface rather than being trowelled flat. That is the main practical reason it gets specified on sloped lots. It is not a substitute for grading the driveway so water leaves the surface properly.
The finish itself has no applied layer to wear through, so it does not thin out in the wheel tracks the way a coating can. But the lifespan of any concrete driveway is set by the base underneath it, not the finish on top — a slab on ground that traps water will fail regardless of how it was finished.
Periodically, yes. The textured surface holds dirt and oil more readily than a smooth one, so sealing is largely about keeping it cleanable and keeping the stone looking like stone. How often depends on traffic, exposure and how much road salt it sees.
Yes, and it is the main design decision on this kind of driveway. Size, type and colour of aggregate determine the entire look, along with how deeply the surface is washed to expose it. Worth settling before the pour rather than during it.
Opposite techniques. Stamping presses a pattern into the surface and adds colour to imitate flagstone or brick. Exposed aggregate removes the surface to reveal real stone. If you want it to look like stone, aggregate gets there directly; if you want it to look like laid flagstone, stamping is the technique.
Marginally. A shovel rides differently over texture than over a smooth slab. Most people find it a fair trade for the grip, but it is worth knowing before you choose it.
It depends on area, removal of any existing driveway, the aggregate you choose, access, and what the excavation finds underneath. We do not post prices we have not stood on the property to confirm — you get a written quote after a site visit.
Anywhere in our Ontario service area.