Paving

Last year they ripped up our road to replace the water mains. Since then we’ve been living with a ripped up road and a lot of potholes. The other day they showed up with this machine and removed all of the old pavement to get ready to repave it.

It has actually been very interesting to watch the whole process in detail. First, they removed all of the manhole covers and placed metal plates over the holes. They noted the location of each of these with a GPS device. After they had done that, they laid one coat of asphalt over everything. Then they came back with a jackhammer and uncovered each of the manholes. Then they rebuilt the top part of each hole and then reinstalled the cover so that it projects a couple of inches about the surface of the road.

Once they had done this, they went around and added curbs. Those won’t last long though. The snowplows will have removed most of them by February.

So at the moment, all of the streets in the neighborhood looks like this.

This week they’ll put another layer of asphalt over the whole thing.

In the meantime, the cars have all been a complete mess from all of the tar and dirt, and the kids have tracked it everywhere. In addition, because it has been so hot, the crew shows up really early every morning to start with their jackhammers. We’ll be happy when this project is over. This actually won’t be the end for some of our neighbors. After this, they’re going to start putting in sidewalks on the other side of the hill.