Hot rubberized crack sealing in Cedar Flat.

What the work involves

Cracks get cleaned out and filled with hot rubberized sealant that stays flexible through the freeze and thaw cycles. It is the highest-value pavement work at this elevation, because it stops water before water becomes ice inside your pavement.

Why it matters at this elevation

A crack is a funnel. Water runs in, freezes overnight, expands about nine percent, and levers the crack wider. The next day more water fits, and the cycle repeats through both shoulders of winter. Sealing the crack shuts the funnel before the base underneath gets wet.

Up in the 6,300s, plow traffic and snow load are heavier than they are down in town, and it shows in the wear pattern. Sealcoat gets scraped off travel lanes faster, edges take more abuse, and any raised crack lip becomes a target for the blade. Pavement at this elevation earns its life from crack sealing more than from its last coat.

How the job runs

Not every crack is worth sealing and we will say which. Hairlines get handled by a sealcoat. Openings from about a quarter inch to an inch are the sweet spot. Anything spread into a connected web is telling you about the base, and that is a different conversation.

Cedar Flat pavement specifically

Residential driveways, most of them sloped and many of them shaded. Grade plus shade is the combination that produces ice patches in the same spot every winter, and those spots are where the pavement opens first.

Being up off the water and in the trees changes the pavement conversation.

Cracks here get treated as the priority item rather than the add-on, because the water they let in is what takes pavement apart at this elevation.

Cedar Flat sits at roughly 6,400 feet, and the pavement around it behaves accordingly. More on the area on our Cedar Flat service area page. We work the same corridor through Kings Beach, Brockway, Tahoe Vista, Crystal Bay, and the pavement guides go deeper on the physics if you want it.

Questions