Repair sunken asphalt ramp

[Luckyme]

I have a small ramp built of asphalt about 5 feet wide and 4 feet in length for my lawn tractor. Over the year, it has sunken about 3-4 inches similar to the problem with asphalt driveway at the juction of the garage entrance. I would like to rebuild it up with asphalt such as Bomix. My question is - do I need to put some type of adhesive on the old surface before laying the new asphalt, or is Bomix potholes repair asphalt the material to use? Would concrete mix on top of the old ram a better idea to repair this ?

Thank you for all your advice.

[LouB]

Concrete sounds like a bad idea since it is rigid.

Lou

[bob haller]

whatever is causing the sag, probably a poor base will continue to get worse, better to rip up and replace entirely, with new gravel base

[Luckyme]

I have a feeling you are right. But I just don't know if the new asphalt will bond to the old asphalt surface.

Any advice, anyone ?

[SteveBell]

The summer I spent on the grounds crew at my college, we mopped the inside of potholes with what looked like liquid tar, then tamped in the cold patch asphalt. The boss said the liquid stuff made the cold patch stick better. I took him at his word.

Go to the hardware store and read the instructions on the can of liquid-tar-like-stuff. It's probably cheap enough that you should just use it.

[trader4]

Yes, there is a tack coat product that is used by commercial companies when doing asphalt patch work and it's applied as you say. It helps bond the patch to the existing asphalt.

But here's the problem. The local hardware store isn't going to have it, nor will they know what you're talking about. And even if they did give you some "liquid-tar-like stuff", it's going to be roofing cement, which I highly doubt is at all suited to the application. In fact, I suspect it's worse than using nothing.

I looked around for it a bit years ago and had no success. Perhaps it can be found online. But next problem will likely be that it comes in large quantities suited to pros.

[mkirsch1]

I agree with those who say that it will continue to sink.

Frankly it will probably cost about the same to rip it out, fix the base, and replace with concrete or a treated wood ramp.