Pothole and Asphalt Patching in Lansing, MI

Patching cuts out broken or failed asphalt and rebuilds that spot with new material, and it is the driveway repair to use once damage reaches below the surface. Around Lansing that damage has a season. March brings an average of 17.8 freeze-thaw days to the airport station, and Pavement Interactive explains what follows: as ice in the soil melts, the water is trapped above ground that is still frozen, and the subgrade loses bearing capacity. Tires then press the surface into a soft base, the asphalt cracks into plates, and the plates break loose into a pothole. A patch that lasts has to deal with that base, not just fill the hole, and it has to cure before driveway sealing goes over it.

There are four common ways to patch, and they differ mainly in how much of the damaged pavement they remove. Cold patch is a bagged or bulk mix packed into the hole by hand or tamper; it works in wet, cold weather, which is exactly why it is used in March, and it is a stopgap. Hot-mix patching fills a cleaned, squared hole with plant-mixed asphalt compacted in layers. Saw-cut, full-depth patching removes a rectangle around the failure down through the base, repairs or replaces the base, and paves it back. Infrared patching heats the surrounding asphalt so new mix fuses with it, which suits surface defects rather than failed bases.

The choice follows the diagnosis. Pavement Interactive describes alligator, or fatigue, cracking as interconnected cracks caused by loss of base or subgrade support, often from poor drainage or spring thaw, and its repair note for a localized area is to remove the cracked pavement, dig out and replace the poor subgrade, improve drainage and patch. On ground mapped as Capac loam, where the seasonal water table can rise to within 6 to 18 inches of the surface, skipping the drainage step leaves the new patch sitting on the same wet ground that failed the first time.

Spring timing has a legal parallel. Michigan law lets road agencies cut maximum axle loads during March, April and May, by 25 percent on concrete pavement and 35 percent on all other types of roads, because thawed ground carries weight poorly. A residential drive gets no such protection. Loaded moving trucks, roll-off dumpsters and concrete or gravel deliveries parked on a drive in April press into the same softened base, so it is worth scheduling heavy vehicles for summer or laying plywood under outriggers and dumpster rails.

Potholes in the street are a separate matter. Inside the city they belong to Lansing's Public Service Department, which explains how to report one on its potholes page; in Meridian Township, Grand River Avenue and Saginaw Street are MDOT roads and the rest are Ingham County Road Department roads. A contractor repairing the driveway apron should stop at the property's side of the road agency's line unless the right permit is in hand. Patch pricing by method is listed on the cost page.