Asphalt is a common paving material in residential areas due to its versatility, cost-effectiveness, resilience, and low maintenance costs. Unfortunately, factors such as sun exposure, water intrusion, weather changes, and harmful practices can degrade your asphalt surface.
Luckily, most pavement issues can be fixed. For instance, seal coating covers the cracks through which water infiltrates your asphalt surface and causes damage.
Here are common asphalt pavement issues and their best fixes.
Cracks
Asphalt tends to crack when the soil settles or after extended exposure to elements. Improperly mixed asphalt is also prone to cracking issues on the surface.
Below are two types of asphalt cracks you might come across.
Alligator Cracks
Alligator cracks (or fatigue cracking) resemble a cracked alligator's skin. These cracks result from poor asphalt surface installation, overloading, weak surfaces, or inadequate drainage. If left untreated, the alligator cracks develop into large potholes that are costly to fix.
A full-depth patch repair can restore the damaged surface if structural failure is to blame for the alligator cracks. However, you can install another asphalt overlay if fatigue cracks extend throughout the pavement surface.
Longitudinal Cracks
Longitudinal cracks (or linear cracks) are usually parallel to the asphalt pavement's centerline. Asphalt fatigue due to excessive use, age, or poor maintenance is a major culprit for these cracks. Poor joint construction also causes linear cracking.
You can seal minor cracks to stop water intrusion into the underlying layers. For large cracks, you should remove the damaged surface and install another aggregate to replace it.
Potholes and Depressions
Potholes are the unmistakable bowl-shaped depressions on the asphalt surface. You should repair asphalt cracks, patches, and rutting in good time. Otherwise, water will seep into the base course through these defects and cause internal damage. This destructive seepage often results in large, gaping potholes. Standing water and changing weather can also trigger the formation of these potholes.
Additionally, if the pavement installer fails to compact asphalt properly, the material ravels out of place and creates potholes. Depending on the severity, you can fix the potholes with techniques such as repaving, spray patching, or infrared asphalt patching.
Depressions are also part of asphalt failure and are often characterized by low elevations around the pavement surface. Common causes of these low areas are poor installation, old age, and poor maintenance.
If left alone, depressions can hold water or melted snow and weaken your pavement's surface integrity. Eventually, major issues like potholes ensue. You can fix minor depressions through asphalt patching methods like milling to fix severe depressions.
If your asphalt surface has these signs of failure, act promptly before the defects spread and become costly to repair. Reach out to asphalt paving contractors to ensure everything is done by the book.
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