Quakertown Borough and Richland Township
Between 1981 and 2018, Quakertown’s temperatures ranged from −13.7°F in January 1984 to 101.9°F in July 2011. Asphalt expands in heat and contracts in cold, so a crack through your court’s pavement never quite sits still.
Local courts
Richland Township surrounds Quakertown Borough, and it covers roughly ten times the borough’s 2 square miles. The township’s own offices, on California Road, use a Quakertown mailing address, and Quakertown Community School District serves both municipalities, so this page covers them together. We work on tennis and pickleball courts in both: crack repair and leveling, resurfacing, acrylic color, line striping and pickleball conversions, whether the court sits behind a house or belongs to an association.
Quakertown’s average nights stay below freezing from December through March, and its June-through-August afternoons average 80°F to 84°F. The American Sports Builders Association (ASBA) calls cracking inevitable in asphalt courts, since asphalt shrinks and turns brittle as it ages. Once a crack runs through the pavement, those temperature swings keep its two sides moving. Crack work on a Quakertown court usually starts from a map of the whole surface: each crack measured, old fills checked for splits, low spots noted, and the work set for weather acrylic can cure in. In the borough or the township, talk your court through with Bill Ferguson at 215-251-2984.
Local conditions
On an average July day in Quakertown, the air climbs from 62.6°F at night to 84.2°F by afternoon. One coating maker says asphalt expands and contracts daily with temperature and moisture, and that how far a crack moves decides how long its filler lasts. So filling is upkeep, not a cure: check the cracks each spring and early fall, and refill whatever has opened.
One coating maker’s spec requires air and surface at 50°F or warmer through the whole installation, a full day before and after included. By Quakertown’s 1991–2020 averages, nights stay that warm only from June through September; May’s average low is 48.2°F, October’s 41.6°F. Under that spec, spring and fall coating here waits for a forecast with warm nights, not just warm afternoons.
Start here
Cracks in a Quakertown court are not all alike: fine surface cracks, structural ones through the asphalt, old fills that have split. The usual repair cleans each out, dries it and fills it with acrylic; one that keeps reopening needs refilling as upkeep.
Richland Township’s parks list pickleball courts at Keller Park and no tennis courts. Your tennis court can host both games, with blended lines usually adding two pickleball courts, or go to pickleball alone, fitting four on a regulation 60-by-120-foot court.
When the base holds and only the top has worn, resurfacing rebuilds the coating in warm, dry weather: patches, resurfacer, textured color coats to the coating maker’s spec, new lines. If cracks have tracked your lines, it’s also time to pick a lighter court color.
Not necessarily. One coating maker says filled cracks can reopen within days, weeks, months or years, depending mostly on how much the crack moves, with freeze-thaw among the other factors. Refill the ones that open, so less water gets into the stone base, and expect a crack that moves a lot to need refilling more often. Whatever the filler, the ASBA says cracks come back or new ones form in time, and that a truly long-term fix is reconstruction.
Because the lines and the court heat up differently. One coating maker explains that white lines reflect sunlight and stay cooler, while the darker color beside them absorbs heat and expands more, so the asphalt under each moves at its own rate. Add the stiffness asphalt gains with age, and cracks open along the lines. The same maker says lighter court colors can lessen the effect, and that the cracks should at least stay sealed with acrylic crack filler. Keep that in mind when you choose colors.
Please don’t use asphalt-based products. One coating maker says never to put hot or cold asphalt-based crack filler on a court, and adds that acrylics don’t bond well to coal tar or most asphalt-based sealants, so the court’s acrylic coats may not hold over them later. Coating makers’ court crack fillers are acrylic, go into clean, dry cracks and need 50°F and rising, which Quakertown’s average nights fall short of from October on. Sweep off the leaves, mark the cracks, and call Bill at 215-251-2984 to plan spring.