What Causes a Pothole

 

Pothole Early Warning Signs 

When carrying out regular pro-active checks you can quickly develop an eye for the warning signs of potholes to catch them early. This will help you save on costly reactive action later and vastly extend the life of your tarmac areas.

Make sure to look for:

Pothole Season

It recent times along with the regular four seasons we have some how managed to acquire a fifth, sitting directly between winter and spring comes the dreaded pothole season. 

Years of under investment in the UK road network has led to an on-going battle come spring to get our roads, car parks and foot ways back to even the minimum standards required.

Therefore due to the limited amount of budget available logically speaking it seems perfectly sensible to save up all your resource for when you expect to have the greatest volume of serious issues. However it's this very approach that is contributing to the problem.

So when is the best time to get out there and carry out repairs?

 

 

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Pothole Maintenace - Potholes have become a hot topic for debate in the UK and can be a very emotive subject.

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Another installment from our popular series of pothole related how-to videos from Renoo.co.uk.

 

 

 

 Click here to watch the video...

 

In this series we are also covering:

• Causes of potholes
• How to identify early stage potholes
• How to prevent potholes forming
• Further methods for potholes repair
• How to save money when it comes to potholes
• How to create a long lasting pothole repair. 

 

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Repair a Pothole - The second in a series of pothole related how-to videos from Renoo.co.uk.

Steve Webb from Renoo.co.uk talking about how to complete a temporary, quick-fix pothole repair.

In this series we are also covering:

• Causes of potholes
• How to identify early stage potholes
• How to prevent potholes forming
• Further methods for potholes repair
• How to save money when it comes to potholes
• How to create a long lasting pothole repair. 

 

 Click here to watch the video...

 

Today I’m going to show you how to make a temporary repair to tarmac/asphalt surfaces whether they be in roads or footpaths.

This is very much your typical pothole that you may have on your estate, little bit of a depression. If it’s out of the way not too much of a problem but if it’s around an entrance it could cause an accident, so a temporary solution is ideal in these circumstances. Temporary solutions are just that, they ae not going to last forever but it’s something anyone can do, a quick fix that ensures that the area is made safe until you can get it fixed properly.

I will take you through the tools that you will need to carry out this temporary repair, Firstly you will need a hand punner to compact the lose material, a shovel and broom.
The material’s you will need are temporary cold-lay tarmac which is available from normal DIY stores and comes in 25kg bags or in tubs. Finally you will need bitumen tac-coat which will make a sticky bond below the tarmac so it will stick to the pothole. This is available in normal aerosol cans so real easy to use, today I have a commercial sprayer here because I use quite a bit of it whilst undertaking temporary repairs for customers.

Now I will take you through 4 easy steps to complete this repair

Step 1: Clean the area so you can do the repair nice and easy without anything getting in your way.

Step 2: Tac-coat the area. Tac-coat is a sticky bitumen solution available in aerosol cans form DIY stores. It creates a sticky bond between the temporary tarmac and the existing surface to prevent it from pulling out. You need to get a nice even coverage over the area that you want to apply the temporary tarmac too.

Step 3: Place the temporary tarmac material in the area to be repaired, generally this will come in a plastic bag or tub. As the tarmac hits the surface it will start to move around as it settles, it’s very much a lose material that will allow you to work it around. The only problem you will get with this material is when it’s very cold. So don’t keep it outside in the garage or out where it’s frosty, it’s best just to get what you need from the store and use it more or less straight away.
Using the shovel even out the material to fill the area leaving it slightly proud to allow for compaction. But you don’t want to have too much material and any excess should be removed. Once levelled out make sure you have a nice even surface so it compacts flat. Pull in any lose material from the sides and it will be ready for compaction.

Step 4: Fourth and final step compaction, with your lose material in the ground you need to really compact it to ensure it firms up, makes a strong surface and stays in the position where you want it. Otherwise it’s just going to pull out immediately as soon as someone drives over it and you will have a pothole again.

Starting from the edges, compact all the way round.  Using the punner,  give it a strong firm compaction and keep going all the way around. The idea of compact is that you’re locking the stones together, as you lock them together they become firmer in the hole and create a proper surface. Keep compacting as you feel it firming up as hard as you can to get a really strong surface. This can be exhausting but keep going to make sure you get the entire area compacted properly.
Finally clean up the edges with a broom and you done.

 

That took me all of about 10 minutes to complete, all you need to do is make sure you prep the area beforehand, you have the right material and tools and you will be able to make a temporary repair to any tarmac surface. This will even work on potholes in concrete if you need to make a quick temporary repair.

Just remember this is not a permanent solution but it will give you plenty of time to engage a contractor to complete a longer lasting repair.

 

Potholes.. a thorn in the side of every driver...

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Simple Pothole Repair

As each winter passes UK roads tend to look increasingly like the country has been at war for a number years. Usually from mid-winter through to spring the pothole menace plagues our highways and creates a catalog of destruction in its wake.

The menace is so great there doesn't seem to be a week that goes by where a death or serious injury isn't attributed to a pothole of some kind.

The question I am asked most is 'where did this  pothole menace come from' and why does it seem to be getting worse? After all our  winters don't seem any harsher than in previous years.