Cracks filled, potholes rebuilt, and failed areas cut out and replaced, on asphalt driveways and lots across the Triangle. Most asphalt here fails from the bottom up, when storm water reaches the clay underneath. Catch it while the damage is in a few spots and it is a repair. Leave it, and the same drive becomes a replacement.
Cold patch from a bag is a stopgap. Pressed into a hole, it fills it for a while, then it softens in summer heat, pushes out under tires and lets water back in around its edges.
A proper repair cuts the failed area out in a clean rectangle, past the edge of the damage, digs out the wet or broken material underneath, rebuilds and compacts the base, and fills it with hot asphalt compacted level with the drive around it. The edges are sealed so water cannot get in at the joint. Done that way a patch lasts as long as the drive.
Summers here are long and hot, with frequent afternoon and evening thunderstorms. Each heavy storm drives water through an open crack into the clay under the drive, and wet clay cannot carry a car. The surface flexes, the crack becomes a web, the web becomes a hole. The heat keeps the asphalt soft and makes the flexing worse.
Winter adds freeze and thaw. NOAA's normals for Raleigh-Durham count roughly 65 nights a year at or below freezing, and most of those are followed by an afternoon above it. Water in a crack freezes at night and opens it a little more. A drive with open damage in November usually has more of it by March.
Plenty of Triangle drives are part asphalt and part concrete: an asphalt drive meeting a concrete garage slab, a concrete apron at the street, or a concrete walk crossing the drive. The two materials move differently in heat and cold, and the joint between them opens. Water gets in, the asphalt edge breaks down, and a step develops. The fix is to clean out the joint, fill it with a material that tolerates movement, and rebuild any broken asphalt edge. The concrete itself is left alone.
When a drive is being sealed, crack filling and small patches are part of the one price per square foot. A drive with more damage gets a higher rate rather than a list of extras. Large failures that need cutting out and rebuilding are quoted as repair work, separately and in writing, so you can see what the repair costs and decide.
If the failed areas add up to a large share of the drive, or the drive is old enough that the sound parts are close behind, patching becomes paying for the same drive twice. That is the point to talk about an overlay or a replacement instead, covered on the paving page. You will be told where yours sits, including when it is still well short of that point.
On a church or shop lot the damage concentrates where heavy vehicles turn: the entrance apron, the drive lane past the door, and the pad in front of the dumpster where a loaded truck sets down its weight. Those areas are repaired first, often in a single day with the rest of the lot open, then the lot can be sealed and restriped. See parking lot sealcoating.
Small repairs during a sealing job are inside the per square foot price. Standalone repairs and cut-out patches are priced per job after a look, depending on how many areas, how big, how deep the soft material goes, and access for a truck. One written number, describing each repair.
Can you repair just the bad part? Yes, that is what a cut-out patch is for. It will look different from the old asphalt until the drive is sealed.
Will the patch match? New asphalt is blacker. Sealing the whole drive afterwards evens it out, though new asphalt should cure before it is sealed.
Is this a concrete repair too? No. This page is about asphalt.
