Manchester Paving & Sealcoating

Manchester Paving & Sealcoating works out of 525 First NH Turnpike in Northwood, New Hampshire, paving residential driveways and commercial lots and doing sealcoating, crack filling and line striping. The company describes itself as family owned since 1974, now in its third generation with a fourth coming up, and names Hjalmer Devarney as owner; customers deal mostly with Bob and Al. The written record is large and unusually consistent. Google publishes 4.9 stars from 99 ratings, and the 49 reviews on file run from 2021 to 2026 with the same two names recurring across years — a pattern that reads as a real, stable crew rather than a review campaign. What customers describe most often is the front end of the job. Quotes come fast, sometimes same-day or next-day, and reviewers repeatedly say the number did not move: a 2022 customer wrote that a March quote was honoured in late June despite fuel and material prices rising in between. Several compared four bids and picked this one on reputation rather than price alone. The work descriptions are specific: a driveway removed without damaging cobble-lined beds or irrigation heads, correct pitch away from a garage, 600 feet of drive laid over a generous gravel base, a quarter-mile 30-degree incline maintained across repeat visits, and a commercial plaza in Rochester patched, sealed and re-striped around trading hours. Two recent one-star reviews, both from August 2026, are the exception and they matter because they are the newest thing on file. One says the paving had multiple mistakes and another company was called in to fix it. The other says spring sealcoating washed off within a couple of months and that calls were not returned. Nothing on file answers either account. New Hampshire does not register paving contractors, so there is no state licence to check for this trade; the company's 'Best of the Seacoast 2024' line is its own claim.