Plow Gouges and Blade Marks: Damage From Snow Removal

Why plows damage pavement here

Snow removal is not optional in Truckee or on the North Shore. Somebody has to move four hundred inches off your road, and a steel edge on a heavy truck is what does it. Even a careful operator will catch high spots, seams, and pavement edges.

Damage clusters in predictable places. Blades catch at driveway aprons where grade changes, at the lip of a valley gutter, at manhole and valve covers that sit proud, and along unsupported edges with no shoulder. Pavement that has already oxidized is softer at the surface and tears more easily.

Speed is the multiplier. A blade at walking pace rides over a defect. The same blade at road speed catches it and tears material out.

Cosmetic marks versus real damage

Surface scuffs and shiny blade polish are cosmetic. They look bad in spring and they will disappear under a sealcoat. Nothing structural has happened. That category covers most of what owners call plow damage.

Gouges are different. If the blade has torn out material and left a depression that holds water, or has broken the edge back so the pavement is unsupported, you now have an entry point for water into the base. That is the damage that turns into a pothole two seasons later.

Take pictures in spring as soon as the snow is off. Photographs from the same vantage points every year are the only reliable way to tell new damage from old damage a season later.

What we can fix and what we cannot

Sealcoating handles the cosmetic side and it also seals the shallow scars so water does not sit in them. Hot rubberized crack sealing handles the linear tears and the opened seams the blade pulled apart. Both are maintenance work and both are in our lane.

Deep gouges that removed a real thickness of pavement need material put back. So do broken edges that need to be cut clean and rebuilt. That is patching and paving, and Robert E. Sutton Co. does not pave, patch, or overlay. We will tell you that on site rather than sell you a coating over a hole.

One more caution. Do not let anybody fill a deep gouge with sealer to make it disappear. It will not cure at that thickness, it stays soft, and the next blade pulls it right back out along with whatever it was stuck to.

How to prevent it next winter

Talk to your plow contractor before the first storm. Shoes or skids on the blade, marked stakes at pavement edges and at every valve cover and drain, and an agreed plan for where snow gets stacked will prevent most of it. Stacking snow on one corner every year also loads and softens that corner every spring.

Timing matters too. Getting cracks sealed and a fresh coat down before winter gives the blade a tighter, tougher surface to ride on. Our season runs June through September. Call (530) 587-4161 and we will look at it and tell you what is worth doing before the snow comes.

Fixing the causes helps as much as fixing the pavement. Bringing a proud manhole frame to grade, easing a sharp grade break at the apron, and building the shoulder up flush with the pavement all remove the things a blade catches on.

Quick answers

More in the pavement guides and the FAQ, or see every pavement problem we get asked about.