OT/ Pavement repair (An experiment)

[torker]

Sorry...this isn't about dead cats or departed Jerry's. It may not even be OT if you need to repair pavement around your shop.
Our parking lot really suffered from the record amount of rain we got in June. It was rough anyway but the water really loosened it up.
I asked a local paving company to look at it to see if they could patch up some of the rougher area
The guy shook his head and said,,,"Nope...it all has to be replaced" Hmmm... $30,000.
Gulp!
Now I am a cheap bugger. I asked around and everyone said..no, the pavement has run its course.
I'm thinking...this isn't rocket science. We have tar, gravel and some sand.
I ended up trying to melt the old pavement with a tiger torch. It just sat there until the gravel started to explode.
After that you can break the pavement into gravel very easily. Heat the area up again....ooops...put on safety glasses first, and pour tar on the area to patch. Stir it around with a stick. It will pick up the sand etc and stick to the old base.
Shovel in the old gravel, pour in more tar and mix in a little bit of pot hole patch. Make sure the pot hole patch covers the fresh tar or it will catch on fire and is very hard to put out. Heat it up with the torch again and stir it all up. Spread it around and hammer it flat with a tamper. When it cools roll on a coat or two of sealer and bingo...you have fresh new pavement for far less than $30,000 and it is TOUGH. Far better than using the ol' pot hole patch. That stuff is next to useless on it's own. Have fun!
Russ

[wierdscience]

Haha,reminds me of my nieghbor,he had all 315' of his driveway paved,$18,000

[chief]

Torker,
You are on the right track but mix the gravel and tar and compact it as you fill the hole.

[Kdahm]

Eeeeps!

Yup, it'll work - for a while. After a year or so, expect to see further deterioration. You might try contacting the local asphalt plant and seeing if they will sell a trailer of cold mix. That'll be cheaper than the bagged stuff from the hardware store.

Biggest thing is drainage. Anytime there is a low spot where water can get through the asphalt into the base is a problem spot waiting to happen. This is an area where good design and paying more $$ initially really pays off in the long term.

Karl


------------------
At a certain point in the course of any project, it comes time to shoot the engineers and build the damn thing.

[jsrestore]

why not just buy a used box paver and then resell it after you are done with the work I see them in my local paper for a few thousand ,

[spope14]

Your idea is used in pavement repair machines called "infrared repair systems". We have two manufacturers of these in my city. They do add some additional pavement to the "mix", and also tend to heat the entire area, not just the hole area to form a better bond.

Good to see this thread.

[Your Old Dog]

I recently did a news story with a guy who invented a polymer liquid for your senario. He demonstrated it with the county. He blew out the loose stuff with an air hose, used a push broom to broom in the polymer bonding agent and then put garden variety cold patch over that. It held up at one of the countys busy intersections for 1 buffalo winter cycle in great shape. Normally a cold patch won't last near that long around these parts. They decided it was cost efficiant to use that stuff once then to cold patch 3 times. Have a good time

[L Webb]

Once the pavement has cracked and water has gotten to the base it should be replaced. You can patch to your hearts content but they are only temporary.

I had a scrap bin sitting on what I thought was a good area a couple months ago. The weather was cool so I thought I'd leave it on the asphalt instead of moving it over to the concrete.

After I loaded 30,000lbs of scrap in the bin I noticed one of the bin wheels had sunk through the pavement and two of the others were partially sunk.

Oh well, I now have three more holes to patch.

After over 50 years of driving a forklift in the yard the concrete driveway is cracking all to pieces. It was poured as a residential driveway in the 30's. When you drive the forklift on the pavement that was placed over forty years ago you can feel it giving way as you travel. I have only patched holes that the fork can get stuck in. The entire yard concrete and asphalt needs replacing but that is some huge bucks.

Les

[Stillgot10]

I hope that the repair works out for you. Assuming the original pavement was asphaltic, I would wonder about what might be going on underneath. Most people don’t realize that the asphalt in not intended to provide substantial load bearing. It is more intended to provide good braking, and to prevent erosion and generate smooth travel through its flexibility. Highway engineers actually often refer to it as “wear course†or “friction courseâ€.

The true load bearing part of the pavement is what they call the “base courseâ€, which is the layer just under the asphalt (usually some form of compacted crushed rock). Obviously, the compacted native soil under the base also contributes to load bearing also, but since it’s deeper, it sees less load intensity.

The point to all of my ramblings is this: Most often failures of asphalt are caused by cracking/sinking of the base and or subsoil. This is why asphalt repair jobs so often prove to be temporary fixes, and possibly this is why the repair guys said to start from scratch. If you just work on the asphalt, you may not have fixed the root problem.

[torker]

Stillgot10...you hit the nail on the head. With all the heavy rain in June the base material showed it's true form. It's a mix of sand and dirt. The parking lot looked ok last year but the water raised cane with it this year.
Add to the fact it is 30 years old and has lots of humps and bumps now....yes it does need replacing.
I'm just trying to repair a few really bad spots and get it through another year or two.
It's a big area...one is 75'X160' and the other is 35'X275'.
I've been using any manner of cold patch I could find but could never get it to bond properly.
This hot tar mix seems to be working far better. After all, I can't see any difference between what I'm making and the real thing.
Gravel, some sand and fine pea, and some tar...the whole mix heated really hot, including the base, then pounded into the area.
"A box paver"...I live in the bush in BC...it'd cost me $40,000 to find a box paver...LOL but thanks for the suggestion!
Seriously though....three days into this and the patches are getting far harder than any before. I think it will work. With the sealer on it, it looks as good or better than new pavement. BTW...My whole street is made out of cold patch now. It doesn't work very well. The patches last less than a month. They don't bond the patch into the hole with heat and tar.
Russ

[Wayne02]

Do those cold patch things work ok? I've got two potholes I'd like to fill and patch if possible. One in my driveway and one on my road (single lane private road).

These potholes are about 16-24" in diameter and maybe 6-7" deep at the center of the pothole. The driveway and road get little use - no heavy stuff or anything.

How do the cold patches work? I purchased two bags of it from HD last year and never had a chance to apply it. Left the bags outside on the side of the shop for a year. It seems rather hard in the bag now... probably not good anymore?

I was in Lowe's yesterday and took a look at what they had. The direction on the bag said to apply in no more than 1" layers... that seems pretty tedious.

Wayne

[Your Old Dog]

here you go. looking at the second one up from the bottom.

http://www.packagepavement.com/package_blacktop.html

This assumes of course that you are patching a hole and not reconstructing a surface to blacktop

[QSIMDO]

I dunno guys.
Class 2 run around $35-$40 a ton around here and that's for Superpave mix.
Rent a cutoff saw with a asphalt blade, cut out your patch area, tack coat the edges rake it in and roll it down.
If you want to get fancy put it in with 2 lifts with the first lift as your wedge coat.
Your local plant can batch just a ton for you and a bit less if he weighs out manually.
I've seen people leave our local plant in pickups pulling trailers with a ton on and a tarp over the top.
Home brew and cold patch mixes won't have the flexibility to weather the seasons and they'll quickly crack out.

Now if your existing base isn't spongy or pumping water you may try having it chip sealed or have macadam put in ;stone, emulsion, more stone and then rolled.