Asphalt 101

Beth Walter, my business partner of more than 40 years, runs our construction and property management. Beth gave this succinct--and very useful--overview of parking lot maintenance to a new property manager.

"Asphalt work falls into several categories:

Cold patch – literally bagged asphalt any maintenance guy can throw into a hole temporarily to eliminate a liability issue.

Remove and replace – Contractor cuts and removes the old asphalt three or four inches and replaces it with new asphalt.? This is needed if you have areas that are "alligatored" (broken up asphalt mimicking alligator skin) or brown areas that are floating in rain or removable by hand.

Grind and overlay – if you have areas that are cracked or sunken but not as described above – and you have enough curb depth to accept more height in the asphalt, this is the way to go.? The contractor grinds the old asphalt about two inches, and then overlays what remains with the new asphalt.? In the past, contractors used a material called Petromat to bind everything, but they may be using a different product today.? You get a great surface using this method, but the downside is that trenching through it later (e.g. to fix a broken water main) is more costly because of the difficulty in cutting through the mat.

?And that’s your 20 second asphalt 101"

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