Signs Your Driveway Needs Repair Before Winter
Small asphalt problems turn into big ones over an Erie winter. Here's what to look for while you still have time to fix it cheap.
Winter is the season that finds every weak spot in a driveway. Water gets into a crack, freezes, expands, and pries the pavement apart a little more each cycle. By spring a hairline crack can be a pothole. If you walk your driveway now and deal with what you find, you spend a little. If you wait, you spend a lot. Here's what to look for.
Cracks that go all the way through
Thin surface cracks are normal and easy to fill. The ones to worry about are cracks wide enough to slip a coin into, or cracks that connect up into a pattern that looks like alligator skin. Those go down into the base, and once water is getting into the base, the clock is ticking. Crack filling before the freeze keeps the water out and buys you years.
Water sitting after it rains
Walk out a couple hours after a rain and look for puddles. Standing water means that spot isn't draining, and water that sits is water that soaks in and freezes. Sometimes it's a low spot that settled, sometimes the whole driveway lost its pitch. Either way it's worth fixing before it undermines the section around it.
Edges crumbling away
Asphalt is weakest at the unsupported edges, and that's often where it starts to break apart, especially if cars run off the side or there's no gravel shoulder holding it. Once the edge goes, the damage works its way inward. Repairing an edge is minor. Rebuilding a driveway because the edges were left to crumble is not.
Potholes and soft spots
A pothole is already past the warning stage, but it still needs to be cut out and patched before winter rather than left to grow. Same with a spot that feels soft or springy underfoot. That usually means the base underneath has failed and it needs to be dug out and rebuilt, not just skimmed over.
Faded, dried-out surface
A driveway that's gone gray and looks dry has lost the seal that protects it. On its own that's not an emergency, but it means the surface is taking the full hit from water and salt all winter. A sealcoat in the fall, paired with filling any cracks first, is cheap insurance.
None of this needs to be a big project. Most of it is a morning of crack filling and patching if you catch it early. Wait through a winter and the same driveway can need resurfacing. If you want a second set of eyes on yours, ask us to take a look, the estimate is free.