Material price is the smallest line on the bill. Compare the full lifetime cost of Perma-Patch against hot mix and conventional cold patch — labor, equipment, traffic control, and the callbacks that quietly drain a maintenance budget.
Durability data from federal study SHRP-H-348
Failure rate by material
A $5M Congressional study (National Research Council / AASHTO, Projects H105–H106) installed test sections at 22 sites across the U.S. and Canada. Perma-Patch posted the lowest failure rate at every interval from 18 months to 4.65 years.
Lower is better. Source: Strategic Highway Research Program report SHRP-H-348, U.S. DOT / National Academy of Sciences. These failure rates drive the callback math below.
Your Operation
Annual repair volume across your network
How far out to measure true cost
$/hr
Wage + burden, per crew member
Per-Repair Inputs · Adjust to your numbers
Lifetime Cost
Total program cost over 5 years
100 potholes/year · installed cost × (initial placement + SHRP-projected callbacks)
Where the Money Goes · Cost per pothole (lifetime)
Material
Labor
Equipment
Traffic control
How this works. Installed cost per repair = material + (crew size × time × labor rate) + equipment + traffic control.
Each material’s SHRP-H-348 failure rate is projected onto your horizon to estimate callbacks:
callbacks per pothole = failure rate × (horizon ÷ 4.65 years), so a material that fails more often is charged for the re-patches it triggers.
Lifetime cost = installed cost × (1 initial placement + projected callbacks). This mirrors the study’s own finding that
material price is one of the least significant costs, while durability quietly governs labor and equipment spend.
Failure rates are federally sourced; all cost inputs are editable — enter your own crew sizes, rates, and equipment figures for a true apples-to-apples comparison.