Asphalt mix producers still have an uphill battle when it comes time to educate fly-by-night contractors. You may feel it’s not worth the trouble; let those turkeys find a different plant to buy mix from and complain about.
But here’s the thing—a paying customer is difficult to turn away. If the business down the street from your plant hasn’t heard of warm-mix asphalt (WMA) or cold patch by now, here’s a handful of links to help them understand you’re not only offering an environmentally positive pavement design, but you’re also extending the paving season for them and aiding in good compaction results with warm-mix additives or foamed product out the gate.
Benefits from Increasing WMA Use (updated for 2022)
Another way to help the paving crew in the field work with WMAs is to make sure they’re monitoring temperature. Remind contractors to stick a thermometer in the truck bed portal and aim a temperature gun at the mounds of mix as haul trucks arrive on site. If they’re seeing a discrepancy of more than 20 degrees between trucks, then, yes, they have a beef worth looking into. Anything from driver behavior to moisture content at the plant could be causing a problem to be solved.
What’s NOT a problem is the warm mix itself. The industry has been paving with it for years and achieving excellent pavements like the concept discussed in this week’s clickable article right here.
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