Boise Asphalt Maintenance
Patching a golf course lot in Boise
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The lot needed a full tear out and repave. The budget was not there. Here is what we told them, and what we did instead.
A golf course in Boise, Idaho
Asphalt patching and repair
Four
About 714 square feet
Widespread alligator cracking, full tear out and repave recommended. The worst areas were cut out and repaved, then the perimeter sealed.
What was on the ground when we got there
Alligator cracking across a large part of the lot.
Alligator cracking is not a surface problem. The pattern comes from the base failing underneath, so the asphalt flexes under load until it breaks into the interlocking sections that give it the name. Sealing over it does nothing, because there is nothing solid holding it up. Patching over it buys a season if you are lucky.
When it is that widespread, the honest answer is that the lot needs to come out and go back down. That is what we told them.
The conversation about the budget
The full repave was not in the budget, and it was not going to be. There were two easy ways to handle that and we did not take either of them.
- The first is to quote the repave anyway and let the customer work out that they cannot afford us.
- The second is to quietly quote a patch job and let the customer believe it is a fix. That one pays better in the short run and it is the reason a lot of people distrust this trade.
What we did instead was say plainly that the lot needed a full tear out and repave, that we understood the budget did not allow it, and that there was useful work we could do inside what they had.
What 714 square feet buys
We picked the four worst areas. Not the most visible ones. The ones where the failure was deepest and where leaving it would spread fastest into sound pavement.
| Area | Size | What it was |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20 ft by 30 ft | A large failed section, the worst on the lot |
| 2 | 1 ft by 40 ft | A long narrow run, not a pothole |
| 3 | 5 ft by 5 ft | A localized failure |
| 4 | 7 ft by 7 ft | A localized failure |
That second one is worth explaining. A forty foot run one foot wide is not a pothole. It is a failed seam or a trench line. Patching it means treating it as the linear defect it is rather than dropping four square patches along it and calling it done.
That is not a fix and we did not describe it as one. It is the best use of a constrained budget, stopping failures from spreading and buying time to plan a proper repave.
What we did, in order
We tore each area out and repaved it. Cut back to solid asphalt on all four sides, out to where the material underneath was sound. Cutting inside the failure means the patch fails from the edges in.
We let the asphalt cure properly.
Then we ran hot tar around the repaired edges to bond and seal the perimeter. That last step is the one that gets skipped. Sealing the four new joints is what decides whether the patch lasts a season or several years.
How we decide between a patch and a repave
The number that matters most is how much of the lot is affected, not how bad the worst spot looks.
Patch when...
The failure is localized, the pavement around it is sound, and we can cut back to solid asphalt on all four sides. A patch with a good edge in a good lot is a permanent repair.
Tear out when...
The base has failed across a large share of the surface. Alligator cracking over a wide area is the clearest signal, because it means the structure is gone rather than the surface. Learn about repaving.
Overlay when...
The existing surface is structurally sound and the problem is wear, oxidation and minor cracking rather than failure.
What this cost
Tear out and repave runs about $4 per square foot on average. At 714 square feet that puts this job just above the point where a paver has to be brought out, which carries a minimum of about $2,500 regardless of area.
Bringing a paver means an extra truck, a trailer, crew setup and the time to mobilize. That is why very small paving jobs carry a floor, and why larger areas carry a lower price per square foot.
If your lot is doing this
If you are seeing interconnected cracking spreading across a section of your lot rather than a single crack or hole, that is the base and not the surface.
We will walk it, tell you what it actually needs, and if that is more than you want to spend right now we will tell you where the money does the most good.