In my area the technique for filling in potholes at the side of narrow country roads is to just shovel in some tarmac and leave it to passing traffic to compact the tarmac. Does this happen elsewhere?
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L\'escargot.
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Yes and after a month its as bad again.
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In my area, Gloucestershire, they are much more sophisticated than that. One man fills the pothole, another whacks it down with a different shovel and the third drives the pickup. This scientific approach means that the repair will really last. It takes at least 2 days for the filling to be pread all over the road!
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Why fill them in at all? Think of them as speed bumps turned inside out.
That should make some posters learn to love them.
Untreated potholes on urban main roads can become truly enormous, so that cars have to climb in and out of them. They fill with murky water too when it rains.
Another feature of the third world chic being slowly and expensively imposed on us all.
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Why fill them in at all? Think of them as speed bumps turned inside out.
Very true. Most of the same advantages, but none of the costs.
I know some streets where some over-eager council official has filled in the potholes nad had the road resurfaced, only to then find that speed bumps had to be installed to get the traffic back to a sane pace.
Name-change time: NoWheels + Almera = NowWheels
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In my wife?s home town they are even more sophisticated. One man drops an old toilet into the hole while another smashes it up with a hammer.
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Hope the toilet is unoccupied, so to speak!
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In South Amnerica they would plant a tree in the hole to warn you - Honest!
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Not wishing to hijack the thread, but can anyone advise on the cheapest way of filling potholes?
There's part of an unadopted road outside my house getting worse by the day; I never drive on it as we turn right to the main road, but I feel that I should try and maintain the surface, despite having no obligation or motive to do so.
I've tried financial inducements to workers maintaining the public road further down, they can never be bothered for some reason(twenty quid for a few shovels of tarmac and ten minutes of their time seemed ok to me....).
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Yes and after a month its as bad again.
Seconded, thanks to West Berks Council
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100% convinced that I read in the Saturday Telegraph some time ago, (maybe over a year), that there was a new repair system called a "Rhinopatch" which was stronger by many times than the usual repair with expensive rapid mortar, or even a new road. Much more economical in the mid/long term.
In despair of Local authorities...yours......M.D.
P.S. They should stick to lighting the gas lamps!!
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Rhino,
Not a micky take I promise you.
Reg's......M.D.
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Not taken as such either!!
The Rhinopatch process looks good but is more of a local authority thing. I was really after a DIY solution, as it's only about ten yards of road with half a dozen holes.
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Rhino, Wickes do tarmac in a bag but what looks like a small pothole can swallow a surprising amount of material and it's expensive bag for bag. A cheaper solution is "crush and run" which is crushed aggregate from a few mm diameter to powder, but this is only really any use in well drained/cambered surfaces otherwise it washes away v quickly and potholes tend to be in less well drained places which is what caused them in the first place. You can get it from Jewsons type merchants.
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I think the worst repairs/bodge-ups are around drains, manhole covers in middle of road which are subsiding into roads,its about time local Authorities got tough on the contractors for not doing the job properly
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Steve
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Maybe the subbies bodge it up cos they're being paid peanuts.
Reg's.........M.D.
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"I think the worst repairs/bodge-ups are around drains, manhole covers in middle of road which are subsiding into roads"
Any of you who visit Frodsham will know the cyclic potholes on the old A56 swing bridge. They have been filling and emptying for several years on a monthly basis, whether they have been treated cheaply or carefully. I suspect that the metal bridge deck underneath flexes just enough to cause breakup when the filling reaches a certain solidity.
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IF Wansbeck council ever get around to filling one of the million craters afflicting its roads, they pat it down a bit (either with a workman?s boot or spade no doubt). But this is the thing, there are so many holes its hardly worth doing anything because without re-laying the road it its entirety, the 'repairs' just get lost amongst the 1000 other adjacent repairs. Roads? Nah, more like a tarmac version of a patchwork quilt. I would go as far as to say that the Wansbeck area has one of the worst kept road networks around (as far as road surface quality goes)
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To fill in pot holes in tarmac (our private road)i have used the folowing method with sucess.
1.Cut back tarmac edges to square things up,
2. Fill hole with 1-3 mix concrete using rapid set cement fill to within 1" of top surface,
3As soon as concrete sets brush concrete and eges with bonding bitumen, when tacky (5 mins),
4.Spread cold lay tarmac (wikes sell it) (if the weather is cold or the tarmac in the bag is compacted warm up with a blow torch).
5.compact with a punner or vibrating plate
If the road surface is mearly graded harcore and gravel then i would fill the hole using dry weak mix concrete (20mm to dust and cement) 1-8 dry mix (no water)fill the pothole and comact this well into it. The moisture in the ground will set the cement and help bind the repair.
The pot hole in monmouthshire are terible. Round my way the council dont even bother clearing the dirt from the inside of the pot hole before filling.
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I used to live along a private road along with a number of other residents. Nobody maintained the road. It had to be a comunal thing! Get a contractor to do it properly as and when it becomes absolutely necessary. Clubbing together is one way to reduce costs.
If YOU fill in a hole and for whatever reason someone trips up over YOUR repair, YOU will be liable.
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Thanks all.
RB, the private road further up the hill is maintained by the residents to a good standard. For some unknown historical reason before we moved here, a section bordered by three houses (including ours) is not included in the scheme.
When we moved in, I offered to get involved, but was ignored by the then organiser. As stated previously, I don't drive on the road outside my house so I haven't subsequently bothered in my own interests. The only drawback I have is hearing vehicles banging into the holes.
If I'm legally liable for any subsequent litigeous action, then I'm going to let the roadway become a mud track.
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What are you all? Chaps with a ton and a half of surplus ready mixed roadmetal going cheap? That sort of thing?
Come to think of it the approach road down in Sussex is beyond a joke, you have to swerve round the potholes and you wouldn't want to slip off the road into the trees...
'Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.'
But it isn't the centre that's the problem, it's the sides where the wheels go. Let plants grow in the centre, do all this concrete gardening in the ruts, if you can be, is one allowed to say deleted - NO! - DD
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You are forgetting the obligatory "temporary" traffic lights.
A team of council workmen set up the lights several days before the work is scheduled. The hole-fillers belong to a different union, and the timing of their jobs is worked out by another department. The lights may or may not be removed after the job is finished.
Oh yes, and needless to say, the lights are unreliable and frequently stick in the permanently red position.
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Pothole filling (at the edge of the road, anyway) in my neck of the woods is carried out by one man with just a small truck-load of tarmac and a shovel.
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L\'escargot.
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I sympathise with the "3rd world chic" comments: my girlfriend lives in sunny Armley, Leeds and I am always utterly astonished by the poor quality of the roads. They're bad all over Leeds, but Armley, Hyde Park and surrounding areas are dreadful.
Mind you, probably a good thing, given the quality of driving in Leeds...
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We?ve been house-hunting for new build projects the last few weeks which has meant driving down roads that are supposed to be maintained by the developer but are clearly a low priority. One in particular was so bad it was like driving over moguls. There were worrying groans and creaks coming from deep down in the car. I thought the windscreen was going to pop out.
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Friend of mine had a leak in the road outside his house,hmmmm,perhaps I should have put that differently,a pipe was burst and quickly pushed up the patching where repairs had been attempted previously.He informed the highways dept.who sent out their best moron to deal with it.When my friend spotted him shovelling tarmac into the hole,still with water gushing out of it,he enquired if it wouldn't be a good idea to fix the leak first the moron replied it was not his job.'Couldn't you contact someone whos job it is,waterboard perhaps?'Not his job either.Needless to say the 'repair'did not last the day.
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