Everything on this page you can check yourself in ten minutes with no tools. The point is to walk into a quote knowing roughly what you are looking at, rather than relying on whoever turns up.
The four things that say your Edmonton surface is finished
The first and most reliable is the cracking pattern. Separate cracks running in one direction are age. Cracks that have joined into connected shapes are the base moving underneath, and no surface repair reaches that.
The second is settlement. Any area that has dropped below the surface around it has lost support beneath, and filling the dip leaves the cause in place to do it again.
The third is edges breaking away and the fourth is water standing after rain. Failing edges can be rebuilt if the rest is sound, water that will not leave is fixable, but both appearing alongside connected cracking usually means the answer is replacement.
Past repair
Check it yourself
How to assess your Edmonton surface in ten minutes
Stand back and look at the cracks
From a distance the pattern is obvious in a way it is not close up. Look for whether cracks have joined up or are still separate lines.
Sight along the surface
Crouch at one end and look across. Dips and settled areas show from that angle even when they are invisible standing up.
Walk the edges
Unsupported edges crumble first. If they are breaking away along most of their length, the surface is near the end rather than damaged in one spot.
Go out after rain
Standing water marks where the base is being attacked. Note where it collects and how long it takes to clear.
What it still might be
Signs your Edmonton surface is only untidy
Grey colour on its own means nothing structural. It is oxidation, and a uniformly grey surface with separate cracks and no settlement is a maintenance job rather than a replacement one.
Scattered potholes can be misleading too. A handful of defined failures in an otherwise sound surface are a repair job, however bad each one looks to drive over.
What matters is how much of the area is involved and what is underneath. Individual holes and separate cracks are routine work, a worn surface over a sound base needs only a new surface course, and its age is the sanity check on all of it.
Cracks that have joined into connected shapes across an area. That pattern means the base is moving underneath, and no amount of surface repair reaches the cause of it.
Not on colour alone. Grey is oxidation, and a grey surface with separate cracks and no settlement is a maintenance job rather than a candidate for replacement.
It is less about the count than the proportion of area involved. Scattered holes in a sound surface are repairs, while failure spread across much of the area is not.
Because it is actively causing the next failure. Water sitting on asphalt works into the base, and once the base softens the surface above it has nothing to rest on.
Reasonably well. Connected cracking, settlement and edges failing along their length all point downwards, while fading and separate cracks point at age instead. Opening the worst area confirms it either way.
On a replacement, yes. Ask each contractor what the cracking pattern tells them and whether they checked the base, and compare the reasoning rather than the figures.
