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California C-32 Parking and Highway Improvement Exam

Incidental Pavement Repair

C-32 work includes incidental repair — fixing the surface defects that surface treatments alone can’t.

Doing it right

Pothole: square out, clean, fill, compact. Crack: seal promptly to keep water out of the base. Mill and overlay: remove the worn top layer, place a new lift. Recurring pothole = failed base → full-depth repair.

The key judgment is surface vs. base: if only the surface is worn, a patch or overlay works; if the base has failed (a pothole that keeps coming back, or a saturated subgrade), the fix is a full-depth repair, not another thin patch. Sealing cracks early is the cheapest way to keep water from reaching and destroying the base in the first place.

Practice: Incidental Pavement Repair

Frequently asked

How do you make a pothole repair that lasts?
Square out and clean the hole, then fill and compact the patch. Throwing loose mix into a dirty hole and driving off fails quickly. If a pothole keeps returning, the base beneath it has failed and a full-depth repair is needed.
What is mill and overlay?
Milling removes the worn top layer of asphalt; an overlay places a new asphalt layer on top. It restores a surface without full reconstruction, as long as the base is still sound.

More C-32 Parking & Highway topics