Using the Fifth Season to Get a Cedar Rapids Driveway Ready for Winter

Where the fifth season came from

The nickname has a precise origin. The City of Cedar Rapids says the City of Five Seasons identity was created in 1968 by the advertising agency Creswell, Munsell, Fultz & Zirbel, with Bill Munsell and Gary Anderson behind it, drawing on Ecclesiastes 3:1. The fifth season was the extra time to enjoy the other four, a pitch built on the city's short commutes. In 1996 the same pair saw a 60-foot stainless steel version of the logo, the Tree of Five Seasons, go up near the Cedar River downtown.

For pavement, the useful fifth season is a narrower thing: the weeks in early fall after sealing weather has faded but before the ground freezes. It is short, and it is the last chance each year to keep water out of a driveway's base before winter starts working on it. What gets done in those weeks shows up, one way or the other, in March.

How short the window is

NOAA's normals for the airport station draw the edges. In September the average high is 74.5 degrees and the low 51.1, but about 13 of September's 30 nights still fall to 50 or below, so sealcoat, which wants 50 and rising for a full day, becomes a forecast gamble. In October the low averages 39.5, about 27 nights reach 50 or below and about 7 reach freezing. The median first freeze at the airport is October 6; in one year in ten it comes by September 23, and in nine years in ten it has arrived by October 21.

A second NOAA station, Cedar Rapids Number 1 on the city's northeast side, puts the median first freeze five days later, on October 11. Either way, the practical fall season for pavement runs from roughly Labor Day to mid-October, and what belongs in it depends on the job.

What fall is right for, and what it is not

Fall is the right time for crack work. Pavement Interactive names spring and fall, the moderate-temperature seasons, as the time for crack sealing, and recommends sealing cracks soon after they appear, before water has worked into the base. At the airport station November averages about 16 freeze-thaw days and December about 14, so a crack left open in October faces dozens of freeze cycles before spring. Filling cracks in fall closes that door before the cycles start.

Fall is also the last call for hot-mix patching. Iowa DOT specifications bar paving when the shaded air is below 40 degrees without an approved cold-weather plan, and the average November high at the airport is 46.5 with a low of 27.8. Soft spots and potholes found in September can still be cut out and patched with hot mix in early fall. After that, cold patch is the only option until spring.

Fall is usually not the time for a full sealcoat. With close to half of September's nights and most of October's at 50 degrees or below, a late coat risks curing poorly and wearing off by spring. If a drive missed its summer sealing, it generally makes more sense to fill the cracks now and seal the following June.

A fall checklist for a Cedar Rapids drive

Most of the list is simple, and all of it is aimed at the winter the airport numbers describe: about 143 nights at or below freezing, 26.7 inches of snow and around 17 nights at zero or colder.

The city's yard waste carts run from early March to mid-December, and paper leaf bags are collected during the fall leaf vacuum collection period, so leaves swept off the drive have somewhere to go. Carts belong 3 feet from obstacles on collection day, which on many lots means the end of the driveway, and the city's Leave Room for Lucy reminder asks for space between carts, mailboxes and poles.

• Walk the drive on a dry September afternoon and mark every open crack and soft spot
• Fill cracks before mid-October, while most nights are still above freezing
• Patch potholes with hot mix before November; after that, cold patch until spring
• Clear leaves off the pavement so wet mats do not sit on it for weeks
• Set the YARDY, CURBY and GARBY carts on opposite sides of the drive if space is tight
• Put up snow stakes along the drive edges so plows and shovels stay on the pavement
• Pick a spot on the lawn for snow piles, since the city asks that driveway snow stay out of the street

Winter rules to plan for now

Several city rules touch driveways once snow arrives. During a declared snow emergency, cars park on the odd-address side on odd calendar days and the even side on even days, and parking on posted emergency snow routes is banned; vehicles left on the street more than 48 hours can be ticketed and towed. The city asks residents not to push or blow snow from driveways into public streets, and sidewalks must be cleared within 24 hours after a storm ends.

Those rules put more cars on driveways and more snow beside them. Deciding in fall where the snow will go, keeping it off the pavement edges and repairing broken edges before plow season all reduce the damage that shows up in March. Owners who want a full seal next summer can request Cedar Rapids sealcoating quotes over the winter and be scheduled early in the June to August window.

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