Charles Brown Paving & Excavating

Charles Brown Paving & Excavating has worked out of Chico since 1993, pairing asphalt paving and maintenance with excavation for residential and commercial customers in Glenn and Butte counties. The business is family owned, the owner reviews estimates and visits job sites, and the company states that it is a licensed California contractor carrying insurance and bonding.

In Butte County it works in Chico, Durham, Paradise, Magalia, Forest Ranch, Oroville, Palermo, Gridley and Biggs. Its Glenn County coverage includes Willows, Orland, Hamilton City and Artois.

Paving jobs range from new driveways and driveway overlays or refinishing to approaches, roadways, walkways and commercial parking lots, using hot-mix or cold-mix asphalt depending on the job. On a typical driveway, the crew removes the failing surface, grades for drainage and compacts the base, then lays and rolls hot-mix to the specified thickness before finishing the edges and the tie-ins where the new pavement meets the garage slab, sidewalk and street. For road work, the company builds the pavement structure in compacted layers from the base upward.

Maintenance services include sealcoating, which shields asphalt from water, oil and UV exposure, and crack repair. Cracks are wire-brushed and blown clean, injected with hot rubberized sealant, squeegeed level and dusted with sand. The company uses filler for cracks narrower than half an inch and sealer for those between half an inch and two inches wide, and it also patches potholes and prepares surfaces ahead of a seal coat.

The same crew that paves also handles excavation, covering lot clearing, foundations, drainage, grading and general site prep on small and large jobs. Estimates are free and written, and the company aims to respond the same day.