Quick Tips to Protect Equipment Used in Pavement Repair

To round out this month when our toolbox tips focus on pavement repair projects such as crackfilling and patching, let’s take a minute to look at the equipment. You can help employees protect equipment—and the project—with a couple quick tips.

1. When using a spray wand, don’t let the tip drag along the ground. This will wear the tip and/or the elbow, requiring early tip replacement and possibly replacement of the entire wand end.
2. When spraying sealer, don’t hold the wand above waist level. If the wind is blowing, keep the wand’s tip around knee level at most. This will help keep overspray from coating nearby landscaping, curbs or vehicles.
3. Use a shield to protect nearby landscaping and curbs. A couple OEMs have come up with shields that attach to the end of the wand without adding too much weight; you might check into those.
4. Don’t let the hose drag on the ground behind the wand and worker. If the tank can’t be moved to accommodate the space/application, then have an additional worker assist by holding the hose up while the spraying worker moves forward. A dragging hose is a hose you’ll have to repair and replace.

Also consider training each crew member with an online course. You’ve seen us mention this before. AsphaltPro magazine teamed up with industry veteran John Ball of Top Quality Paving & Training to create Asphalt Paving 101. It’s a back-to-basics online course that gives you immediate, lifetime access on any device to train any number of crew members any number of times. You enroll here.

Subscribe now to receive tips like this directly to your inbox each week!