Crack sealing: the cheapest work a pavement will ever get

Pavements rarely fail from the top down. They fail because water gets underneath them. A crack opens up in the surface, rain gets in, the base material softens, and the next heavy vehicle over it pushes the surface into the void below. What started as a hairline becomes a pothole, then a patch, then a section that has to be dug out and rebuilt.

Crack sealing interrupts that sequence at the first step. A hot-applied sealant is worked into the crack, bonds to both edges, and stays flexible enough to move with the pavement through summer and winter without opening up again. It is quick, it is cheap, and it is the single most effective thing an asset owner can do to extend the life of a sealed surface.

The economics are not subtle. Sealing a crack costs a small fraction of what it costs to repair the consequence of leaving it. A council that runs a crack sealing program on a two or three year cycle will spend far less over a decade than one that waits for potholes and patches them, and will have a better road network to show for it.

The work suits a schedule rather than a tender. Carparks, hardstands, local roads and sporting courts can all be walked, assessed and programmed in advance, and the sealing itself is done with minimal disruption to traffic or trading. If you manage a pavement asset and nobody has looked at it recently, it is worth having someone walk it before the next wet season rather than after.