How to Fix a Pot Hole in an Asphalt Driveway
Potholes arise when you fail to attend to alligator cracks (small cracks that resemble the scales on a spider or alligator). Pot holes need to be fixed if you are to prolong the life of your asphalt car parks. Read on to discover how to fix pot holes in your asphalt driveway.
Preparation
Use a spade for scraping weeds or grass off around the areas with pot holes. Get rid of loose asphalt by blasting water on the floor using a hosepipe. Brush off the debris and scrub the floor using driveway cleaner for removing stubborn stains such as oil film. Rinse the floor and leave it to dry.
Measure the size of the hole to determine how much filler material you will require. There are many kinds of filler materials used for repairing holes. You can use rubberized asphalt crack filler. This material is applied using a caulking gun. Cold-patch blacktop is used for wide pot holes. The most common filler for asphalt pot holes is cold asphalt filler (rocks mixed with asphalt tar). Cold asphalt filler mainly comes in plastic bags similar to those that package cement.
Repairing the Pot Holes
Square the edges of the pothole. Pour the asphalt filler into the hole with a trowel or shovel. After you have covered two inches of the hole, use the shovel or a tamping object for compacting the filler in the pot hole. For very deep holes, use material that you can compact tightly like crushed concrete, crushed limestone or clay. If you are having trouble compacting material, you will have to excavate the pot hole and use some concrete for stabilizing the ground.
A long lasting repair is achieved by compaction. Pour in some more filler and compact in increments of two inches until you fill the hole completely. Add more filler until it is overfilled so that it is level with the rest of the driveway after compaction.
The reason you need to compact in small bits is that, if you were to fill the entire hole only to realise that you have not compacted well enough, adding more material will lead to a poorly done job, and in the long run, the top layer will crack. Furthermore, too much filler might result in a bump on the surface.
Once you have finished, cover the surface with a board or plywood and drive over it to allow it to harden.
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