Small Asphalt Repair — South King + Pierce County

Patch or repave is the real question

Most property managers see a pothole and assume the whole lot's coming up. That's almost never true. Small-to-medium asphalt repair is what keeps a lot in service for years past the point where everyone assumes a repave is coming. The patch work bridges the gap between "needs sealcoat" and "needs full repaving" — and on most lots that gap is wider than the owner thinks.

The honest answer is on the walk. We come out, look at what you actually have, and tell you which side of the line you're on. Below the line, patching plus a sealcoat over the top buys you another five-plus years. Above the line, we'll tell you straight that repave is the cheaper long-term answer, even though it's a bigger bill now. Either way you get the real answer, not a quote padded with work you don't need.

Types of failure we patch

Different problems get different fixes. The walk sorts them out.

Potholes are the classic: a hole in the asphalt where the surface and the base have both failed. The fix is saw-cut clean edges, remove the failed material down to a sound base, fix the base if it's loose, and pack hot-mix asphalt in lifts.

Edge ravel is the perimeter of the lot crumbling where the asphalt meets the curb, sidewalk, or grass. Common on older lots that never had a clean original edge. The fix is similar to a pothole patch with a longer scope.

Soft spots are asphalt that flexes underfoot or under a tire. The base underneath has lost its structure. Leave a soft spot alone and traffic turns it into a pothole inside a year. Saw-cut, remove the failed material, fix the base, repack.

Alligator cracking is an interconnected web of cracks across a small area. It looks like a crack-filling job. It's not. The base has failed. We patch the affected area, we don't try to fill it.

Birdbaths and drainage failures are low spots where water pools. Sometimes a patch with the right grade fixes them. Sometimes the area has to be milled and overlaid to correct the slope. We tell you which on the walk.

When patching makes sense and when it doesn't

Past a certain point, too much of the lot has failed and patching stops being worth the money. Full repave is the honest answer in that case. The rough gut check: if more than about a quarter of the lot is alligator cracking or active potholes, you're in repave territory. Below that line, repair plus sealcoat buys you years before the repave bill comes due. Above it, you're patching the same lot every other year and the patches don't blend.

We'd rather lose a job to a repave contractor than sell a customer four years of patches that should have been one repave. That's not virtuous, it's how we stay in the area without burning the customer base.

What's in a patch visit

• Walk the lot and identify every spot worth patching
• Saw-cut the failed sections to clean square edges so the patch bonds (no skipping this — asphalt sawn at a clean edge is the difference between a patch that lasts and one that lifts in a year)
• Remove failed material down to a sound base
• Compact the base if it's loose, or rebuild it if it's gone
• Fill with hot-mix asphalt and compact in lifts
• Sealcoat over the patch about thirty days later — the patch needs to off-gas first or the seal won't bond to it

Weather

Hot-mix asphalt needs dry conditions to bond. We schedule patches around the weather. We won't push a patch through during a Pacific Northwest storm just to keep the calendar moving — that's how patches fail early. If the forecast doesn't cooperate, we reschedule.

What it runs

Asphalt repair is priced per square foot with a setup cost for hauling equipment and a per-patch minimum for small jobs. A single pothole patch on a one-truck visit runs at the low end. A lot with eight to ten patches plus edge repair runs higher. The biggest cost mover is depth: a shallow surface patch is fast; a patch that has to go down through a failed base is a different scope. We sort which is which on the walk.

What usually goes with this

Asphalt repair is almost always step one in a multi-step plan. After the patches settle for about thirty days, the long-game move is sealcoating the whole lot so the patches blend in and the rest of the surface gets protected at the same time. If the lot has cracks that haven't reached the pothole stage yet, crack filling is cheaper now than patching them later. And if the stripes are faded, we can stripe over the patches once they're sealed — see parking lot striping.

FAQ

Can you do this in the rain? No. Hot-mix needs dry conditions to bond. Wet substrate plus hot-mix equals a patch that fails inside a year. We'll reschedule.

Will the patch last? Patched right, it lasts as long as the rest of your lot — sometimes longer because it's newer asphalt. Square-cut edges, compacted base, hot-mix in lifts, sealed about thirty days later. Skip any of those and the patch lifts.

Do I need to sealcoat over the patch? Eventually, yes. Wait about thirty days for the oils to off-gas, then sealcoat over so the patch blends and the whole lot ages together. Sealing too early bonds badly and the seal peels.

What's the difference between a pothole and a soft spot? A pothole is already a hole. A soft spot is asphalt that flexes underfoot or under a tire — usually a sign the base underneath has failed. Soft spots get worse fast under traffic. Both get the same treatment: saw-cut, remove the failed material, fix the base, pack new hot-mix. Patching a soft spot before it turns into a pothole saves you the deeper excavation later.

Service area

Kent (Kent Valley Industrial, East Hill, Kent Station, Riverbend), Auburn (downtown, Lakeland Hills, Auburn Way corridor), Federal Way (downtown, Twin Lakes), Tacoma, Renton (downtown, Highlands), Covington, and the surrounding South King and Pierce County area.

Ready to fix the worst spots?

Call (253) 264-5064 or request a free estimate. Free walk, real number after.