Asphalt Patching in New Orleans, LA

Driveway Patch

Home driveways in this city rarely fail in the middle. They fail at the edges, where the soil keeps doing what soil does here, and where a live oak root has decided your slab is negotiable. So a driveway patch usually means squaring off the broken section, cutting back to sound asphalt, digging out the soft base and putting stone back before any new mix goes down.

That base step is the one that gets skipped. Skip it and your asphalt patch sinks into the same hole by the second wet spring, which is the paving version of doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Most residential asphalt patching runs about two inches compacted over a rebuilt base, and a typical drive in Gentilly or Broadmoor is done in half a day. Keep the car off it overnight.

Driveway Tar Patch

Tar patch is the black, rubbery stuff you squeeze into a crack, and it has a narrow job. It seals hairline splits up to about half an inch and the ragged edges where your slab meets the street. It is not a fix for a hole with soft, wet base under it. Tar over mush is lipstick on a pig.

Done right, a driveway tar patch starts with a blower and a wire brush, because tar will not stick to dust or damp. We fill in shallow lifts, squeegee it flush, then dust it with sand so August in New Orleans doesn't leave black shoe prints on your porch.

Done wrong, it skins over, traps moisture and peels off in sheets by the first cold snap. Most driveways we tar are back in service in a few hours.

Driveway Patch Repair

Most driveway patch repair I do at a house comes down to one soft spot near the apron, where the city's oak roots and our clay soil have been arguing under your slab for years. I saw the failed area into a square, pull the asphalt out, and look at what's underneath. If the base is pumping water, new asphalt on top of it is a quick patch asphalt job that sinks again by Mardi Gras. So the stone goes in first, compacted in lifts, then tack on every cut edge, then hot mix rolled tight.

Feathered edges are the other killer. A thin lip of asphalt patching sitting on old blacktop peels in the first August downpour.

Most single-driveway repairs are a half day, and you can park on it that evening.

Asphalt Patch Repair

Patching is surgery, not a bandage. The failed asphalt gets saw cut into a clean square, not chipped out in a kidney shape, and we dig until we find something solid underneath. Around here that's the whole ballgame, because our soil moves and half the potholes I look at are a base problem wearing a surface problem's clothes.

Then tack coat on every vertical edge, hot mix in lifts of about two inches, and compaction while it's still hot enough to work.

What ruins an asphalt patch repair is a feathered edge. Thin asphalt at the perimeter breaks up by the second summer, water gets in the seam, and you're back where you started.

Most asphalt patching we do on a driveway or a small lot wraps in a day, and you can park on it that evening.

Cold Patch Asphalt Repair

Cold patch is what goes down when the weather refuses to cooperate. It's premixed asphalt that stays workable straight out of the bucket, no plant and no heat needed, so I can fill a pothole patch on a wet Tuesday in February when hot mix would stiffen up before we got it off the truck.

Done properly, cold patch asphalt repair still means squaring the edges of the hole, getting the loose crumbs and standing water out first, filling in lifts of about two inches, and mounding it an inch high so it compacts down flush. Skip that compaction and the patch pops out with the first real downpour, and we get plenty of those.

Cold work buys you months, sometimes a couple of years. When the plant is running and the forecast is dry, hot patch asphalt lasts longer, and I'll say so.

Hot Patch Asphalt

Hot mix is the real thing: asphalt that leaves the plant somewhere around 300 degrees and has to be down and rolled before it drops below about 175. That clock is why a hot patch asphalt repair gets scheduled, not squeezed in. We saw or mill the failed area to square edges, haul out the loose stuff, tack the vertical faces with emulsion so the seam actually bonds, then lay it in lifts and compact each one. Skip the tack and you get a black rectangle with a hairline moat around it, and the next August downpour finds it.

Most driveway and lot repairs like this are done in a morning and take traffic within a couple of hours. Cooler and denser than cold mix, and it doesn't shove out of shape under a delivery truck's tires.

Hot Patch Asphalt Repair

Hot mix leaves the plant around 300 degrees and starts dying the moment it hits the truck bed. That clock is the whole job, which is why we schedule the run from the plant before we schedule anything else.

Real hot patch asphalt repair starts with a saw. We cut the failure back to square, vertical edges, not the crumbly slope a pothole naturally wants, dig out the soft stuff underneath, then tack the walls and floor so the new mat bonds instead of sitting in the hole like a cork in a bottle. Mix goes in lifts of two inches or so and gets compacted until the plate rings.

Skip the tack coat and you buy yourself a seam. By next August that seam is a crack, and after one wet winter it's a pothole again. Done properly, you're driving on it the same afternoon.

Sealbest Pothole Patch

Sealbest pothole patch is one of the bagged materials we keep on the truck, and it earns its spot. It's a cold mix, so it goes down in November drizzle or an August afternoon when the sky opens over Gentilly and there's no plant hot mix within reach. The trick is prep. Sweep and blow the hole out, get standing water gone, then fill in two inch lifts and compact each one hard with a plate or a truck tire. Dump a bag in a wet crater and mound it up like a beignet and you'll be sweeping loose stone off your driveway by the weekend.

Done right, an asphalt patch like this holds a year or two and buys you time until our asphalt paving company can cut and hot patch it properly.

What the job involves

Every asphalt patching job I do starts with a saw cut, because a clean square edge bonds and a ragged, shovel-torn edge ravels by the next hard rain. We break out the failed material, usually two to four inches down, and then we actually look at what's underneath. Around here that's often soft, water-logged clay, and if the base is pumping, no amount of new blacktop on top of it is going to hold. So we dig deeper, bring in stone, and compact it in lifts.

Then tack coat on every vertical face. That's the step that gets skipped, and it's why so many a pothole patch you see on a side street off Carrollton is already lifting at the seams.

Hot mix goes in, gets rolled tight, and most asphalt patch repair is done and drivable the same afternoon.

What it costs

Nobody loves hearing "it depends," but with asphalt patching the hole you're looking at is the smallest part of the number. What moves it is depth, how many separate spots you've got, and whether the base underneath is still solid. Around here it often isn't. Our soil moves, water sits, and a pothole patch dropped over soft ground is just an expensive lid on the same problem. Square footage matters, access for the truck matters, and a hot patch asphalt repair prices differently than a quick cold patch asphalt repair meant to hold you through a wet stretch.

Give us a call with the location and a rough size and we'll tell you what your asphalt patch repair runs, honestly, after we've put eyes on it.

Cheap patches fail by the next August.

Why choose us for this

You've got a soft, sunken spot by the gate that's been on your list since Carnival, and what you actually want isn't craftsmanship. You want to hire somebody once, not stand in the driveway supervising, and not think about that hole again for years.

So here's what we won't do.

Quote one number and invoice another: the price I give you is the price, unless we open it up and find the base is soup, and then you hear about it before we touch anything.

Start somebody else's job in the middle of yours: your asphalt patching gets finished before the truck moves on.

Lean on you to sign today: no expiring discount, no clipboard pressure.

Leave a mess: tack cans, cold patch crumbs and cutting slurry go with us.

I'm not the cheapest quote you'll get, and after the best part of 19 years I've made peace with that. Squaring the edges, compacting in lifts, sealing the joint. That takes hours some crews skip. The estimate costs nothing and you're not obligated to book.

Frequently asked questions