Not Sure How Deep Your Pothole Is? That's Fine
Our quote form asks how deep the pothole is and offers an easy out: "Not sure." A decent share of inquiries tick it, including a recent one from a homeowner in a quiet East Coast Bays street with a few potholes in the driveway, photos attached, depth unknown. Some people apologise for it in the notes, as if they've failed a test.
You haven't. Nobody stands in the rain with a ruler, and the form works fine without it. Depth still matters to the repair, so this is what we do with "not sure", and what depth actually changes.
How depth reads from a photo
A photo carries more depth information than people expect. Shadow across the hole gives relief; broken edges show the asphalt layer in cross-section, and that dark layer is usually 25 to 40 mm thick, which calibrates everything else in frame. What's visible at the bottom matters most: black and rough, you're still in asphalt, shallow; grey stones, the hole is through to basecourse, medium; brown soil or standing mud, the base itself has gone, deep.
Water in the hole hides the bottom but tells its own story, covered in the ponding post; a hole that holds water is being enlarged from below regardless of today's depth.
So a close photo taken at a low angle, with anything for scale, lets us band depth confidently. Two angles make it near certain. When a photo is genuinely ambiguous we quote the likely band and confirm on arrival, and if reality differs you hear it before work starts, not on the invoice.
What depth actually changes
Depth is a proxy for which layers have failed, which sets the work.
Shallow, under 5 cm: the wearing surface has broken but the base is holding. Cut, clean, tack, hot mix, roll. The cheap window; single patches from $450.
Medium, 5 to 15 cm: through to basecourse, some base material lost. The repair adds base rebuilding: dig out soft material, replace, compact in lifts, then surface. More time and material, so mid-hundreds to low four figures depending on area.
Deep, past 15 cm: something under the pavement has moved, washed out or was never compacted, and the pothole is a symptom. Sometimes it's still a straightforward dig-and-rebuild; sometimes there's a leak, a failed trench reinstatement or a subsidence question that deserves an answer before asphalt goes anywhere. Deep holes are where a photo quote turns into a conversation, and where "hole opened overnight" belongs to a different post about sinkholes.
Ticking the wrong band doesn't wreck anything; it changes a number we'd rather get right early, which is why the honest "not sure" beats a confident wrong guess.
If you want to measure anyway
Skip the tape measure. Lay a broom handle across the hole and photograph the gap under it side-on; that single image nails depth better than any number you'd type. A dry day helps. Kick loose crumbs out first, since a hole part-filled with its own rubble photographs shallower than it is. Thirty seconds, and the quote tightens from band to firm.
The same logic applies to area, by the way. "About one shoe by two shoes" in the notes field is genuinely useful; one inquiry we priced recently just wrote the two patch sizes in metres straight into the notes, and that job went from photos to a same-day fixed price to done and invoiced with no site visit at all.
Frequently asked questions
What if the quote assumes shallow and it turns out deep?
The quote states its band. On arrival the crew confirms before cutting; if it's deeper, you get a revised fixed price on the spot and can decline at no cost. What never happens is a surprise line item after the fact.
Do multiple "not sure" potholes need a site visit?
Rarely. Several holes photographed well quote as reliably as one, and doing them in a single visit is markedly cheaper than one at a time.
Does winter change any of this?
Only the urgency. Every depth band grows faster once the hole spends July full of rainwater, so a shallow "not sure" photographed now is worth more than a certain measurement taken in September.
Is there a depth where DIY cold mix is fine?
Shallow and out of the wheel path, a bag of cold mix is honest first aid; our rural driveway post covers where it earns its keep. Anything medium-plus in a driven line, the bag fill walks out within months.
Take two photos from different angles, tick whatever depth box feels least wrong, and send it through. "Not sure" with good photos gets a firmer price than a guess with none.
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