Asphalt Repair & Patching in Fort Worth, TX

Water, almost every time. A crack or a porous spot lets water into the pavement, the water saturates and softens the base, the weakened base stops carrying wheel loads, and traffic finally breaks the surface open into a pothole. The south side makes this worse because it sits low — runoff off the I-35W corridor, McCart Avenue, and Sycamore School Road drains toward Sycamore Creek and the Trinity floodplain, so lots hold water longer and feed it into the pavement.

A standard professional pothole repair runs $100 to $400, depending on depth, how much surrounding pavement has crumbled, and whether the base under it is sound or saturated. A shallow throw-and-roll patch on a dry base sits at the low end; a full-depth cut-out where water has ruined the base is priced by area at $4 to $8 per square foot. Commercial lots off McCart Avenue or Sycamore School Road with several potholes are usually quoted as one written, itemized job, since mobilization costs the same whether the crew fixes one hole or six.

Repair makes sense when the damage is isolated — a handful of potholes, cracks still under about a quarter-inch, or a few failed sections on a surface whose base is otherwise sound and dry. Replacement becomes the better dollar once roughly a third of the surface shows alligator cracking, rutting, or repeat potholes in the same spots — signs water has taken the base across a wide area. If it's that case, [new asphalt paving](/asphalt-paving) covers it from the subgrade.

Hot-pour crack sealant applied to ASTM D6690 specifications typically holds from a season up to a couple of years before it needs a touch-up, and most work we do carries roughly a one-year workmanship warranty on the treated area. How long it lasts depends mostly on how much water keeps working the crack — a seal over stable, well-drained ground lasts far longer than one over a low spot that ponds after every rain. Sealing early, while the crack is still tight, gets the most life out of it.

Usually yes, at least the start of it. Standing water is the single strongest on-site predictor of where the next pothole opens, because ponding gives water time and pressure to soak through the surface and into the base rather than running off. That's why drainage correction is part of what we do — sometimes the right fix isn't a better patch but re-grading so water stops sitting on the spot.

Throw-and-roll dumps hot mix into a cleaned-out pothole and compacts it — fast and economical when the damage is limited to the surface and the base below is still sound and dry. A full-depth saw-cut patch is a different job: the crew cuts a clean rectangle around the failure, removes asphalt and saturated base down to solid material, and rebuilds in compacted lifts at $4 to $8 per square foot. The deciding factor is water — if it has softened the base, only full-depth removal takes the wet material out, and throw-and-roll over a failed base buys a repeat call within months.

Alligator, or fatigue, cracking is the reptile-skin pattern that appears when a water-softened base can no longer support the pavement flexing over it under load — a base-failure symptom, not a surface one. Early cracking that's still tight can sometimes be routed and sealed with hot-pour sealant to shut the water out and buy time, but once the cracks have opened and pieces shift underfoot, that section needs a full-depth saw-cut patch down to dry, sound base. We inspect how far it's spread and how wet the base is before quoting either fix.

No — cold-patch is a temporary fix meant to close a hazardous hole quickly when hot mix isn't available or the weather won't allow a permanent repair, and it doesn't bond to the surrounding pavement as tightly, which leaves seams water can work back into. Hot-mix and infrared repairs bring fresh heated asphalt to the site or reheat the pavement so new material welds to the old, and that tight bond is what keeps water out through heavy traffic. We use cold-patch when a hole must close same-day for safety, then follow with a permanent repair.

Edge cracking shows up where the pavement's outer border isn't backed by a curb or full-depth base, common on south Fort Worth driveways and lots paved without a structural edge. With no lateral support, the outer few inches flex under wheel loads and vibration until they crack parallel to the edge — and the moment water gets into that crack, it undermines the unsupported soil beneath and the failure accelerates. The fix is routing and sealing while it's still tight, or rebuilding the shoulder if it's already crumbling, plus correcting the grade where water runs into that edge.

Routine patching, pothole repair, and crack sealing on asphalt that's already there generally doesn't trigger the same permitting as new paving or a driveway approach, since you're maintaining an existing surface rather than changing its footprint. That said, Forest Hill, Benbrook, Crowley, and Everman each run their own permitting departments rather than routing through the county, and work touching the public right-of-way or changing drainage can fall under different rules; unincorporated addresses fall under Tarrant County instead. We confirm what, if anything, applies before starting, so a repair never becomes a compliance problem.