Pothole season is back: How they form, are fixed and what you can do to avoid damage

WEST CHESTER—BAM!

‘Tis the season. That was another nasty pothole that you didn‘t see in time to swerve around it.

Potholes develop in Chester County as we experience a rapid freeze-thaw cycle.

Repeated rounds of alternating warm and freezing temperatures help create those alignment destroyers.

The more often during winter that temperatures fluctuate from warm to cold, the more potholes are likely to develop.

“Typically, potholes form when water from melting snow or rain seeps through cracks in a road surface during warm weather, then the liquid freezes and expands when temperatures plummet,” reads the PennDOT website. “This pushes a portion of the roadway and the ground up.

“When the ground thaws again in warmer temperatures, it returns to its normal level.”

Sometimes when the roadway remains in a raised position and as the water in the ground repeatedly freezes and thaws due to temperature fluctuations, a cavity forms between the roadway and the ground below, which helps to destroy the integrity of the pavement.

When your car, a truck, and other heavy equipment, drives over the raised sections of roadway, the pavement can break and potholes are created.

The fixes

There are two ways to address a pothole, according to West Chester Public Works Director Don Edwards.

A gummy cold patch is typically used during the winter as a quick fix. When temperatures rise, a more permanent solution, a hot mix, is used.

“If you don’t get it right away it gets worse,” Edwards said.

With a hot mix, a rectangular or square hole is softly cut into the asphalt. Workers dig down and add stones to build the roadway back up.

Penn Dot reported that most permanent pothole patching is completed in the spring/summer when temperatures stay consistently above freezing.

The typical PennDOT crew consists of about eight crew members, dump trucks, a skid steer, a roller and a tack-coat applicator.

With a cold patch, a pothole is filled with asphalt mixed with soap, water or other types of oils to remain flexible so crews can work with it, according to PennDOT.

“The material is simply placed into the pothole with a shovel, then leveled and compacted,” reads the PennDOT website.

Although designed to be a temporary fix, cold patch jobs can last two or more years.

Warm mix asphalt is composed of pure asphalt and stone heated to several hundred degrees.

“The pothole is cut, cleaned and then treated with a tack coat of asphalt that acts as a glue,” the website stated. “After the tack coat application cures, the warm mix is placed into the pothole and compacted using a roller.”

Robyn Briggs, PennDOT community relations coordinator, said that on average, PennDOT uses more than 22,000 tons of material each year on potholes. District 6 (Philadelphia Region) spends roughly over $8 million dollars a year on fixing potholes.

Edwards said that for this winter season the department has fixed less than 10 potholes on West Chester streets.

“Our roads are in such good shape that we don’t have the problems that other places have,” Edwards said.

Damage, avoiding it

Glenn Lewis, owner of Lewis Automotive Inc., and service manager Pat Rooney, took a break at the West Chester repair shop, which has been in business since 1964, to talk about pothole damage.

Steel wheels can be bent and tires can be punctured, blown out or thrown out of balance by potholes, according to Rooney. Steering and suspension can be damaged, along with struts, shocks, control arms, springs and tie rods.

Alignment can get thrown out of whack and steering can pull or drift to one side for several reasons. In rare cases, body damage can occur, where cars bottom out, with damaged exhaust and oil pans.

“Sometimes repair costs can become exorbitant where insurance companies need to get involved,” Lewis said. “Damage can run from replacing a tire to replacing a front end costing thousands of dollars.”

So, what does Lewis recommend?

“Make sure that your tires are full of air and slow down,” he said. “Avoid puddles, they could be hiding a pothole.”

Planned patching

PennDOT planned on repairing potholes on the following Chester County roadways this week:

• U.S. 1 (Baltimore Pike) New Garden, Kennett, and East Marlborough townships.
• U.S. 30 (Coatesville-Downingtown Bypass), Valley and Caln townships.
• U.S. 202, Thornbury, Westtown, and West Goshen townships.
• U.S. 322 (Horseshoe Pike), East Brandywine and Caln townships.
• Route 10 (Octarara Trail/Compass Road), West Sadsbury and Honeybrook townships.
• Route 23 in East Vincent and East Coventry townships.
• Route 29 (State Road, Charlestown Township.
• Route 162 (Strasburg Road), East Bradford Township.
• Route 724, East Vincent and East Coventry townships.
• Paoli Pike, East Goshen Township.
• Chestnut Tree Road, Honey Brook and West Nantmeal townships.
• Corby Road, Penn Township.

Report potholes to PennDOT online at http://bit.ly/PennDOTPotholeFix or by calling 1-800-FIX-ROAD and be as specific as possible on the location.

Source: Berkshire mont