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Every year as the cold winter comes to an end and snow melts we all start to come to life again and are delighted that warmer weather is on the way. The only negative to the steadily warming weather are potholes, which can seem to appear over night in driveways, parking lots, and roads.
If you have a pothole on your property but aren’t sure how to fill potholes, check out the repair tips below. You’ll be ready to restore your property and fill potholes in no time. Know What Makes A Pothole In order to fill potholes and fix your property, you must first know what makes a pothole happen. Potholes are the result of the expansion and contraction of water after it has entered into the ground under the pavement. As the weight of cars and trucks pass over the weak spot in the road, pieces of the pavement become weak. This results in the material breaking down from excess weight of trucks and cars passing over the weak spot in the pavement. This inevitably creates potholes. To fill potholes, you must follow four steps: cleaning, heating, adding the new custom aggregate mix, and cooling. Sealcoating will then protect the filled and cooled pothole and extend its life. Know About The Different Kinds Of Pothole Repair Mix So You Can Choose The Right One Potholes come in all shapes and sizes, and pothole repair mix is just as diverse. In fact, when it comes time to fill potholes the quality of the asphalt mix you use to fill your pothole has a large effect on the long term aesthetics and longevity of your pothole post-repair. There are dozens of mixes to choose from, so make sure you are picking the right one. Hire The Right Contractor If you do not have the time, tools, or expertise to fill potholes on your property, it may be time to let that stress roll off you and hire a professional. Be sure to do your research, ask a lot of questions, and make sure the company you hire has the right knowledge, experience, and integrity to get the job done right. Tri County Asphalt the 1-800-ASPHALT team are ready to assist you and can even do emergency Asphalt repairs in Fresno, Bakersfield, Visalia and the surrounding area. Asphalt is a bigger part of our everyday lives than we tend to realize. Have you REALLY
stopped to think about how to maintain it? Asphalt, made of rock, sand, and tar, is designed to flex, but also stay super strong under the pressures of traffic. However, after time asphalt tends to be beaten down by harsh weather, water, the sun, and long periods of heavy traffic. Under these conditions the asphalt tends to crack, develop potholes, and turn a grey “dried out” looking color. This grey color is due to the asphalt oxidizing, when this happens, the best thing to do is seal it! Sealcoating is absolutely essential to parking lot maintenance. Sealing the asphalt protects it from becoming brittle, cracking, and oxidizing and should be done every 2-4 years. This process is very easy- and should be considering top priority in asphalt maintenance because it will prevent costly repairs in the future. Asphalt with a lot of cracks need a little bit of special attention. These cracks, even if small, need to be filled to prevent further damage. Cracks with weeds should be cleared first, as weeds have the same effect as ice on pavement. There are two types of crackfill- Cold pour: This is used to fill smaller cracks, around ½” in width. Hot pour: This is used to fill larger cracks- up to 1” in width. Crackfill with help keep water and debris, and can help keep cracks sealed for up to 4 years. You can keep your property looking good by doing little things too. Keeping the asphalt swept and clean of debris with not only keep it looking nice, but will prevent them from clogging drains- which causes water to pool and harm the asphalt. Clean any oil stains quickly, as they can be damaging as well. Last but not least, keep your property safe and looking great by making sure to have your pavement re-striped whenever the paint starts looking faded. Tri County Asphalt can help you keep your property at its best. Give us a call at 1-800-ASPHALT for a free estimate today! We lost this job because the owner decided to go with the cheapest bid. Unfortunately the customer found out the hard way that cheap is your enemy. instead of asphalt sealer the contractor used an asphalt rejuvenator that requires heavy sand loads to soak up the excess oil. this is ok for county roads but not for parking lots. what a mess! imagine the phone calls this property manager is getting. Below is an example of our premium sealers. Notice the 60% solids that you can actually see and feel. Is your local owner operator really keeping up with the science of modern sealcoating?
Asphalt sealer products can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Sure, most meet or exceed Federal Specifications and American Society for Testing and Materials Specifications, but to understand the performance property differences of asphalt sealers, certain tests that go beyond just the composition specification requirement tests are necessary. Remember, product specifications are written in many ways and they do not necessarily nail down all the relevant aspects for a sealer’s performance. Federal Specifications require sealers to be measured in a consistent manner in regards to the resistance of water, kerosene and heat; but none of these relates to the longevity of the coating itself after it has been through rain, salt and day-to-day traffic. Some manufacturers perform their own testing procedures to verify performance property. For example, Professional manufacturers will use their laboratory to compare up to 12 different testing points in quality assurance including but not limited to: solids content, ash content, wet color, viscosity, specific gravity, water absorption/desorption, stability in a Weather-O-Meter, durability scrub cycles, comparative dry time, pH level, microscopic particle size measurements and other physical/visual pavement tests. The knowledge gained from this battery of tests can give a much better impression of how a sealcoating will likely perform and provides a baseline against the live testing of products in service. Let’s take a look at some of the crucial tests and concepts that apply to both refined tar and asphalt sealcoatings, which will prove the performance of the sealer as a protective coating. Particle Size Analysis Asphalt sealers are dispersions of tars, clays, fillers and specialty chemicals in water. The performance such coatings depends directly upon how finely the clay and tar particles are broken down during manufacturing. If a batch of sealer is rushed though at any stage of the manufacturing process, then it will likely have a poor “grind” of the raw materials, meaning that particles are not broken down to their smallest possible size, which will greatly change the performance of the cured sealer. The finer the tar particles are, the tighter the cured film will be. This translates directly to better performance as a protection on the pavement surface. The tar particles are cigar shaped and the particle size is measured as length in microns (one millionth of a meter). Tar particles that are three to four microns in length are considered the optimum size. Clays should be ground down to much smaller sizes and should measure is less than a single micron. The particle size is easily measured under a laboratory microscope, using a water-thinned sample of the sealer. So what happens on the asphalt? During the curing process, water evaporates out of the curing sealer creating turbulence in the wet film. Brownian motion causes the tar and clays to bump into each other and eventually they are forced into a tighter and tighter space. The clay particles, which should be much smaller than the tar particles, become enveloped by the larger tar particles and form a complete film. If the clay particles are too large, they are not enveloped in the tar properly and you have water sensitivity issues. Tar particles that are too large do not fuse well and leave micro-voids through which water can gain access to clay/filler particles in the cured film and may render it water sensitive, cause softening and potentially making it prone to tracking. Water Absorption/Desorption Profile Testing water sensitivity of a cured sealer can tell a great deal about how the cured film will preform in service. The testing measures the amount of water absorbed when the sealer is submerged for a set amount of time, and the rapidity with which the absorbed water is shed once the water is removed is measured. An ideal sealer will absorb about two percent (maximum) of its own dry weight in six hours of continuous submersion and will shed almost all the absorbed water in the same amount of time after removing the water source. Poor quality sealers absorb as much as eight to ten percent water and retain about four percent after removal of the water source in the same six hours. This behavior depends largely on the type of clays used in the sealer formulation, but manufacturing processes can also be a factor in this equation. Some clays are more absorbent and hang on to water for a longer period of time. Conversely more desirable clays absorb relatively smaller amounts of water over a longer period of time and give up the water they hold quite quickly when the water source is removed. Water absorption that occurs too quickly and is retained is bad for the sealer because the clay particles in the sealer swell after soaking in the water, thus rendering the sealer soft and quite easy to remove under traffic (foot or vehicle). This generally results in unsightly tracking. Scrub Resistance – Cycles To Coatings Failure A scrub test reveals valuable insight in the toughness of the cured sealer film and its susceptibility to softening and re-emulsifying under water. This type of test is useful in comparing the potential longevity of a sealer against another one or two similar sealcoatings with a variation in formulation. Simply stated, the dry film of sealer is applied to a test substrate, cured in controlled lab conditions for a specified length of time, and is then scrubbed with a stiff brass-bristled brush under a water/sand slurry solution. The number of cycles (back and forth strokes) are noted when a visible portion of the film is lost as a result of the abrasion. The test furnishes an objective comparison between samples in a controlled environment. Some Other Relevant Criteria COLOR - The wet sealer must be a chocolate brown color. The brown color is indicative of the finer tar particles and is the sign of a good grind in the batch making process. It is one way to visually tell that your sealer is properly manufactured. This is true for Asphalt, Refined Tar and the new Petroleum Resin based sealers. ALKALINITY or ACIDITY – pH must be between 7.0 and 8.0. Sealers with a pH figure higher than 8.0 have problems drying and have potential water sensitivity issues. If pH is below 7.0 (acidic), the sealer will be unstable as shown by some gassing or excessive thickening.
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