That sinking feeling when you look out and see yet another crack on your driveway?
First everything looks great one day, then —bam! – a split that doesn’t look as though it exists; Trust me, I get it.
I have spent countless hours researching these enigmatic pavement cave-ins and I can assure you there is much more to this than meets the eye.
Your Driveway: Revealed
Imagine that, a fucking cookie you drive on every day. No, seriously!
Sort of like how cookies need flour, and butter, and chocolatey bits to be the best cookie possible, asphalt is this awesome mix between rocks and gravel with sand sprinkled in there as well, all held together by this super sticky black goo called bitumen (fancy word for basically saying stuff that keeps it in form).
And horseshoe never gets a second chance — you botch the recipe and it’s over.
Crack On An Asphalt Parking Lot
Nature… The Best Mischief Maker
Good old Mother Nature, this chick hates asphalt. So Ruthless and crafty she can be.
You know, those nights in the depths of freezing winters? My point here is even the tiniest amount of water that gets in one of those little cracks in your pavement will freeze. Add to this that water also expands when it freezes. It’s almost as if there were thousands of little ice wedges, pushing down together further and further into your pavement. By the time spring rolls around, I have gaping holes where just a few months earlier I had tiny cracks. Pretty sneaky, right?
And please, let us not even get to the sun. The huge ball of fire in the sky is eating your driveway. Those UV rays are going to keep blasting down and breaking up the glue that holds your pavement together, day after day, year after year. This is as if you were to leave your favourite plastic lawn chair in the sun for too long — eventually, it will become brittle and disintegrate.
The Truth About Traffic
Now, I hear you crying — it’s just the heavy trucks that are scarring your tar strips? Well, not exactly. Listen, you can lighten up the asphalt a great deal if you use it properly. Things get pathetically interesting when you add in further issues like bad drainage and/or a weak foundation. Imagine standing on a solid wooden floor all day every day; except that this floor is water damaged… Watch out below!
Over time, even your regular everyday car can cause some problems. Every time you go over the same spot, the pavement flexes a teeny tiny bit — minisculely little movements. Only, you do that thousands of times and eventually, something has to give. It’s like bending a paperclip one too many times — you hear squeaking but it still seems okay for now… sorta.
The Underground Drama
OK, enough jibber-jabber about the top of your driveway — that’s just not where the party’s at. Your asphalt is sort of like an iceberg – what you see on top is only part of the tale.
Imagine you build that same house, but instead of packing down the ground underneath before you place your foundation (we call this compaction but let’s not get too fancy), it would be like building your home on a beach. Yea, I think it looks cool at first, but then things start to slide and stuff just gets worse. Suddenly, you have dips and valleys where it is supposed to be smooth sailing.
And water? Water, water everywhere and all the boards did squeak…. Oh boy water is the original mischief-maker. Pipes are supposed to be trapped in a cage of dirt, aka the ground, not an underground pool party that no one knew they signed up for when it gets under your pavement. This works to weaken the soil, and under vehicular pressure above, results in a wierd effect where the fine material even get “pumped” up through cracks in the pavement. It does happen — I’ve seen it occur and it looks like a tiny volcano of mud and dirt.
Keeping Your Pavement Happy
Now, I am not going to lie to you: It’s going to get bad for asphalt. Though part of the game in understanding where it goes wrong. Imagine your driveway were a living and breathing thing (not literally, though…). It needs love and yes, sometimes it needed some TLC.
You know that little cracks you might experience? They’re the check engine light in your car — you ignore them at your peril. Some care now keeps the fortune cookie (read: thick wallet) in your pocket later.
Every crack has a story, after all! It may have to do with that brutal winter for which we all need a scientific explanation, or maybe this Palin is warning you about some chicanery afoot below the surface. Either way, now you have a better idea of what to call it when your asphalt begins looking old. And who knows, the next time you see a crack in your driveway, you can amaze your neighbors with all of your new concrete knowledge!
