6 Tips to Prevent Potholes in Your Project

One of the quickest ways to get called back next spring to re-do a project on your own dime is to build mistakes into it. You can avoid the mistakes of potholes—or birdbaths, in layman’s terms—if you watch out for a thousand moving parts on your project. Let’s examine a few of those moving parts to set your crew up for success. We’ll look at your tools of the trade and some best practices for preventing potholes in your project.

• The tools of the trade have got to be warmed up, clean, in good working condition and/or coated with release agent. For example, the plate compactor with a repaired water hose and spray nozzle is less likely to pick up material than a broken one because its plate can become lubricated nicely.
• Spritz the shovel with release agent when you grab it from the work truck so it will be less likely to “hold” globs of asphalt, thus giving you a clean spread of material when doing handwork. This also means you don’t have cooling asphalt chunking to the shovel and waiting to be knocked into the mat to form a segregation issue later.
• The worker who wears tamp shoes to walk around the project is less likely to create divots in the mat, which the plate compactor and roller operator can’t correct.
• If you’re building a long parking lot or lane, see what your crew can do to avoid transverse joints. Avoid stopping the paver—whether that’s a sidewalk paver or something larger—by planning ahead to keep material flowing into the hopper and under the screed for a slow-and-steady pace.
• If you can’t avoid transverse joints, you can build them to be smooth as butter and bonus-worthy. The trick is to check and double-check the fluff factor is compacted down correctly. The article, “How to Make Tomorrow’s Transverse Joint Easy, Smooth” dives into best practices for building this joint, but here’s one quick tip. Use a four-foot (or longer) straight edge parallel to the long joint to double-check the transverse joint you’re building. With fluff factor compacted down, the straight edge should not wobble or act like a see-saw. It should indicate a flat surface.
• Also check your screed’s condition. Before you start the day, make sure it’s smooth, clean and heating up correctly.

What else would you add to this quick list of best practices for preventing potholes? There are so many ways to ensure a smooth, birdbath-free mat. Let’s discuss those online at our Facebook page.