pot holes

Hey guys, I am a striper but have a client who wants some small potholes repaired. Can I cut them out - fill with cold mix and tamp? Will that last okay? Ia there a better way (WITHOUT purchasing a bunch of equipment) to do it? Thanks for any info!

You could cut them out, go by the asphalt plant and get some material, heat it with a weed burner, heat the hole, put the material in the hole and tamp and it will last 10 times longer then cold patch. m Around here cold patch will last about 1 year.

I have had good luck with cold patch for holes two feet or so and under. Wire brush the edges and then put tack on them. Heat the cold patch with a weed burner so you can work it like asphalt. Put it in, rake it out and the tamp it. Tack the edges then put sand on it and go. Asphalt would be the best, but you have a ton to two ton minimum around here regardless of how much you get. Plus you have to have a way to haul it, and if you have a nice pickup I would not recommend going under an asphalt chute.

A-Striper, I don't get hot asphalt I uasualy cleanup around the shoot or get it out of there waste pile after it has cooled then reheat it when I get to the job. There is no charge for it that way. I would not want to do it if I ever needed more then a wheel barrow full. I fil 2 or 3 holes a year in the lots I am responcible for that way. otherwise I recomand the asphalt co do the patch..

Dwan, good idea on the cleanup asphalt, I did not know you could reheat it. I also leave most of the pot holes for pavers to do.

Do be aware heating asphalt with an open flame (torch) is a very good and easy way to burn the asphalt binder and is never recommended. Once burned it will never bond again so you could have a patch that quickly turned to black gravel. The only good way to heat asphalt is an infrared machine or one of the "recyclers" (both of which are expensive, not something for a one-time job).

A-Striper wrote on Aug 24, 2006:Go to #3

I have had good luck with cold patch for holes two feet or so and under. Wire brush the edges and then put tack on them. Heat the cold patch with a weed burner so you can work it like asphalt. Put it in, rake it out and the tamp it. Tack the edges then put sand on it and go. Asphalt would be the best, but you have a ton to two ton minimum around here regardless of how much you get. Plus you have to have a way to haul it, and if you have a nice pickup I would not recommend going under an asphalt chute.

Where would one find the aforementioned "tack"?

Hello......? What is "tack" and where do I get it? Anybody there?

Lotmarker - I was hoping someone with more experience would answer you, but back when I thought I could patch a few potholes and build a few ramps, I would get "tack" from one of my asphalt contractor customers. They didn't mind me doing some patching because they were usually too busy to get to it. Tack is the hot tar they spray on before doing an overlay. It helps the new asphalt stick to the old. When patching, you paint the edges of the old asphalt before putting in the hot mix. Since I didn't have a way to heat it, I mixed it with paint thinner to get a viscosity that I could apply.

Mucho Gracias Roberto!!

i know this sounds funny but when we patch a small hole with cold patch we clean all loose stuff out and remove loose around hole. after filling hole with patch run over it back and forth with front wheel of truck. Very slow from one end to other. Holes that we patched five years ago still in place.. Three to five foot hole four inches deep is as much as we do.

lotmarker, Tack actually isn't tar. Tar hasn't been used to make or seal AC since they stopped using steam rollers. It is an asphalt emulsion. It comes in different grades. SS1H is heat activated and does not work well with cold mix. A CRS type will work better. Where ever you get it, tell them what you need it for. They will set you up with the right stuff. We get it at a bulk plant that sells it along with chipseal oil, asphalt rejuvinators, cracksealers, etc. Check the phonebook and call around. Your local AC plant should also be able to lead you in the right direction.

Thanks for a good, informative answer Cityboy - I GREATLY appreciate it!

Just a slight correction SS1-H (Slow Set grade 1-Hard) emulsion isn't "heat activated". It's just an emulsion. So like emulsion sealer the water has to go away for it to "set". Unlike sealer though, on a summer day this only takes 5-15 minutes (whenever it changes from brown to black) but with hot mix there's no waiting since the hot asphalt cooks off the water right away when it hits it Do be aware if you use some form of tank (as opposed to buckets or a drum) that there are 2 types of asphalt emulsions: cationic and anionic and the 2 don't mix. If you use one that's what you stay with unless you go to a TON of trouble completely cleaning out the tank. (I'm not a chemist but one has a positive electical charge in the atoms, the other a negative)

just use cold patch clean hole out good and apply and pack.

We are a full service maintenance company that does regular hot mix patching as well. But we keep a small pile of QPR cold mix on our yard, for instances where a striping customer has a very small hole, we will use it to save them some money from our minimums for our hot mix patch crew. Anyways QPR and I think the competition brand is UPM, are both fantastic cold mix products, you don't need tack, and can also place in a hole that has water in it. The MFG's have lifetime warranties too. I think they come to the shows, so maybe you can find out more in Vegas. My point is, its a great option for stripers wanting to fill potholes on a smaller basis.

Asphaltman wrote on Oct 1, 2006:Go to #16

We are a full service maintenance company that does regular hot mix patching as well. But we keep a small pile of QPR cold mix on our yard, for instances where a striping customer has a very small hole, we will use it to save them some money from our minimums for our hot mix patch crew. Anyways QPR and I think the competition brand is UPM, are both fantastic cold mix products, you don't need tack, and can also place in a hole that has water in it. The MFG's have lifetime warranties too. I think they come to the shows, so maybe you can find out more in Vegas. My point is, its a great option for stripers wanting to fill potholes on a smaller basis.

QPR is very good, and as correctly stated you should not tack cold patch....if you have the time and means, you should saw cut...we cut all our patches, you want a nice straight wall for the material to lock against. I have seen people tack and heat, as another poster said all your doing is boiling the material and it aint worth a hoot...

MikeNC: " I have seen people tack and heat, as another poster said all your doing is boiling the material and it ain't worth a hoot..." It may not be worth a hoot anyware else, but here but here it works. 1. To have a asphalt co. come in and patch a pot hole it cost $750 each and that is if they have the time this year. I have placed orders in the spring for a few patches that could not be put on the schedule for this season. 2. The cold patch material has to be shipped in HAZ here because it is petroleum base, making the cost of material more then double what anyone down south has to pay. 3. excess from the batch plant is free and reheating it does not have to raise the temp enough to boil off the oils just enough to warm it and make it pliable. If there is another way I would sure like to offer it to my customers. Right now I am thinking about one of those inforead machines that cost around $6k. The payback would be within 2 weeks and I have enough customers that need repair work without going out looking for more. Without the option of been able to use existing material and not having to import new there work will not get done this year and maybe not even next as the 2 asphalt co. in town are to busy. 1 ton cold mix delivered to Juneau = $1400.00 to heat about 1 ton excess with torch under bucket of loader, 3 hours and $80 worth of propane. They tell me that to reheat 1 ton material using inforead it should take less then 1/2 hour and 1/4 the amount of propane. I am open to any and all suggestions as to how I can serve my customers better. I am not an asphalt repair man nor do I entend to be. But I do have to take care of my customers. My earler reply was not ment to say that was the only way to do the job but just to state what has worked for me. By the way patches I have put in using the torch reheat method are still holding up after 3 years in a very high traffic area ware they replaced a cold patch that did not last 1 year. Dwan

Hey everyone - thanks for the tips - I cut them out, cleaned them out , put in a little gravel and put cold patch in and used a plate compactor. worked great and went by today and checked them out after a week - great looking repairs if I do say so myself!

If one was to offer said patches to ones customers, what would one charge? By the cubic foot.. ish? and how much? It sounds easy enough for a never laid a bit of asphalt guy like myself.