Asphalt repair still soft

[mrdo-it-yourself]

I had a big tree root growing underneath my driveway. I took up all the asphalt, cut out the tree root, and made everything all level again. I kept the small stone underneath as a base. I used a hand tamper to compact everything. Then I went to a place like Home Depot and bought the

50# bags of asphalt. I used about 16 bags in total. Then after I poured the asphalt, I used the hand tamper to compact it all making it level with the driveway. It has been a week now and it is still soft. What should I do? A friend told me to rent a compactor. Please help. Thanks.

------------------------------------- Philip Runyon _ _ _ _ | |_ | |__ (_) ___ (_) ___ _ __ ___ _ _ | __|| '_ \ | |/ __| | |/ __| | '_ ` _ \ | | | | | |_ | | | || |\__ \ | |\__ \ | | | | | || |_| | \__||_| |_||_||___/ |_||___/ |_| |_| |_| \__, | |___/ _ _ ___ (_) __ _ _ __ __ _ | |_ _ _ _ __ ___ / __|| | / _` || '_ \ / _` || __|| | | || '__|/ _ \ \__ \| || (_| || | | || (_| || |_ | |_| || | | __/ |___/|_| \__, ||_| |_| \__,_| \__| \__,_||_| \___| |___/

[hrhofmann]

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A week is too short if you used that many bags of patching material. You may have to wait for a month, and some cooler weather.

[mkirsch1]

You noodle-armed the tamper.

When they compact that stuff they mash it down HARD with a big heavy roller, or a big brute of a construction worker laying into that hand tamper for all he's worth.

Your pitiful tap-tap-tap might've smoothed out the surface of the ashphalt, but you didn't COMPACT it one bit.

[Tony]

I used something similar and it took a month or so to cure. Even then it still got harder in the next month. It's nothing like the hot stuff that gets hard as it cools. If driving over it is a problem maybe you can cover it with some heavy plywood. Although personally I'd like the sun to hit it to help it dry.