Filling Pot holes on the street.

[David703]

I live near a highway and the road in front of my house has pretty big pot holes. Tractor trailors go over them all day and the force shakes my house! The town sayes its a county road, which it is, and the county is responsible. The county sayes its a state owned and maintained access road to the state highway and the state sayes its a county road.

So my question is this.. can i go out and buy some asphalt patch from Home Depot and go out there in the middle of the night and fill them myself.? How long does that stuff take to dry? Do i need to fill the holes with rocks first?? Any suggestions, tips or otherwise useful info will be much appreciated!!

[Setec Astronomy]

Oh, you live in NJ...sorry if I'm going off-topic, but we have a county road near my house, and a few years ago the potholes were horrendous. I complained to my cop friend and he said that the county is responsible, and they had called 40 or 50 times (had them logged) on some holes, and got nowhere.

And then of course the 7 day leaf thing, where we were all tripping over ourselves to not put the leaves in the street at the wrong time so we wouldn't get fined, but be sure to get them there at the right time so they would get picked up...guess which road didn't get picked up for 2 or 3 weeks? Yup, the county road...

I'm sure you would be breaking some law by doing this, not to mention it might be dangerous to be in the middle of the road at night. I would try calling your local congressman, might be an opportunity for him to get into the paper by cutting through some beauracratic hypocricy and helping out a constituent.

[flatstick]

Well I used to work as a gas contractor and have opened and filled a bunch of holes in my time. not sure who is responsible for repairing it . as far as your method of repairing it , it will not hold up. to properly fill it in ( depending on how deep it is ) you would need some crushed stone and compact it . from there some cold patch on the top 2 inches or so compacted especially around the edges. this repair will eventually push out from big heavy trucks going over it. the proper repair would be some hot binder with a couple inches of fine top coat compressed. hate to see you waste your time trying to fix it. I have the same problem at work, with nobody wanting to take care of the road, the road leading in is not plowed because everybody claims it is not theirs. would also agree about calling the local congressman.

[a.k.a. Patrick]

There are cold mix products available that will work. The oils gradually leach themselves into the existing asphalt as a binder. We're quite successful with it here where I live. Theres nothing like a hot patch though, with some tack around the egdes.
If you get anything, fill it up about level to the top, let the trucks have it and compact it. The top it with additional. If you try o get it done right the first time, your ither going to leave a large bump from overfilling, or it will be too low from not enough. Get it tight first, then top it.