Can diesel melt tarmac or a pavement?
is an oil-based product; the binder is a heavy tar or bitumen and as such, it can be ‘thinned’ by the addition of a lighter oil, such as paraffin, petrol or even turpentine. Many automotive oils, such as petrol, diesel or even brake fluid, can ‘dissolve’ the binder of a tarmac and there’s no way of ‘re-sticking’ the aggregate back together. Further, the contaminating oil will seep and spread, degrading all the tarmac that it contacts. Given a few days, a petrol leak will ‘eat’ its way through a 75mm thick tarmac driveway; a screwdriver or stiletto heel will easily penetrate the previously ‘set’ surfacing and before long, the now unbound aggregate will begin to be scattered everywhere. And once a hjole appears in a tarmac surface, it just gets bigger and bigger as the edges ‘crumble’.
