POTHOLE SEASON IS BACK
How they form, are fixed and how to avoid damage
BAM!
‘Tis the season. That was another nasty pothole that you didn’t see in time to swerve around it.
Potholes develop in Chester County as we experience a rapid freeze-thaw cycle.
Repeated rounds of alternating warm and freezing temperatures help create those alignment destroyers.
The more often during winter that temperatures fluctuate from warm to cold, the more potholes are likely to develop.
“Typically, potholes form when water from melting snow or rain seeps through cracks in a road surface during warm weather, then the liquid freezes and expands when temperatures plummet,” reads the PennDOT website. “This pushes a portion of the roadway and the ground up.
“When the ground thaws again in warmer temperatures, it returns to its normal level.”
Sometimes when the roadway remains in a raised position and as the water in the ground repeatedly freezes and thaws due to temperature fluctuations, a cavity forms between the roadway and the ground
below, which helps to destroy the integrity of the pavement.
When your car, a truck, and other heavy equipment, drive over the raised sections of roadway, the pavement can break and potholes are created.
The fixes
There are two ways to address a pothole, according to West Chester Public Works Director Don Edwards.
A gummy cold patch is typically used during the winter as a quick fix. When temperatures rise, a more permanent solution, a hot mix, is used.
“If you don’t get it right away it gets worse,” Edwards said.
With a hot mix, a rectangular or square hole is softly cut into the asphalt. Workers dig down and add stones to build the roadway back up.
Penn Dot reported that most permanent pothole patching is completed in the spring/summer when temperatures stay consistently above freezing.
The typical PennDOT crew consists of about eight crew members, dump trucks, a skid steer, a roller and a tack-coat applicator.
With a cold patch, a pothole is filled with asphalt mixed with soap, water or other types of oils to remain flexible so crews can work with it, according to PennDOT.
“The material is simply placed into the pothole with a shovel,