Ninety percent of pavement failure is base failure. Asphalt is a wear surface — it distributes load, but it can't fix a base that's saturated, under-compacted, or built out of the wrong material. Grading and site preparation is where a pavement is really made or lost, and it's the phase where cutting corners costs the most money over a lot's lifetime.
Our grading scope typically includes: site clearing (trees, stumps, existing surfaces), cut-and-fill to design grades, sub-grade preparation and compaction, geotextile fabric installation where soils are marginal (Middle Georgia red clay is a big flag for fabric), graded aggregate base (GAB) delivery and placement, and final base compaction to spec density. Only after all of that do we schedule the paver.
Sub-grade is the critical layer. Red clay swells when wet and shrinks when dry, which cycles the base and cracks the pavement above it — unless the sub-grade is stabilized. Where we find soft or marginal sub-grade, we either undercut and replace with structural fill, or install woven geotextile fabric and place base on top. Fabric is cheap insurance in Middle Georgia soils.
Aggregate base depth is scope-driven. A residential driveway may call for a different base section than a light commercial lot or heavy-use industrial pad. Every project gets a written base scope, and compaction is performed using appropriate paving equipment and methods before paving begins.
Middle Georgia Context
Middle Georgia weather, drainage patterns, traffic, and site conditions can all affect asphalt performance. Quality Paving evaluates each property individually and recommends scope based on observed conditions, intended use, materials, drainage, and scheduling needs rather than making predictive pavement-life promises.