The question where does asphalt go when you get cracks in your driveway? You clean and fill them and after the winter they are even bigger? Just where does the stuff go I can't belive that it could be shrinking.
i don't think it goes anywhere...it's just the bituminous shrinking from the aggregate
Moisture and spring thaw it doesn't take much.
Of course it's shrinking--nature of the beast--take a look at vinyl siding when it's cold--in the inside corners the siding will be much further away from the end than when it's warm out.Same principle.The only 2 things I know that expand when cold are water and dirt.Oh yeah--just remembered another--a certain part{2 actually} of a womans anatomy.:bouncegri :thumbsup
Where it goes After your asphalt cracks much of it gets broken off from you driving over it and the pieces get stuck in your car tires and carried off to who knows where. The spring thaw can do tear apart roads driveways, and houses poured in the winter. If the ground shirnks and there is nothing under the asphalt to support it you get pot holes and cracks.
As a landscaper who does maintenance on properties also, I get to see many places once a week. I have been amazed at just how much barely noticable to the average not paying attention person erosion happens in some areas. If your area has had a particularly rain or snow filled season, a lot of the asphalt & it's base that has been "disturbed" could easily have eroded to someplace far enough away that you can't see it. I work in some neighborhoods with what I consider gently rolling hills & with 2 years of particulary over average periods of rain interspersed with a couple of average periods & a light drought period, I am amazed at the destruction I have seen in some yards. Complete areas have dissapeared or changed grades by a few inches, but the lost soil is nowhere to be found in that or next door yards. So Mother Nature could easily have taken some of that asphalt away once it was loosened.