Is your asphalt plant testing for stress?

Asphalt takes a lot of trauma - constant travel by cars and heavy trucks, precipitation, humidity, and sunlight. How can you know if your batch order will stand up to your needs? 

Asphalt testing involves a set of tests being run on a sample of asphalt, or asphalt mix. The Asphalt Institute recommends a random sampling basis with a minimum of five tests per full day’s production.

Why should your asphalt plant provider do this?

You expect your paving contractor to sell asphalt mixes and install asphalt - but you may be surprised by what other services are available to you.

Grading and Earth Moving

Grading is essential to the paving process - even if you don’t often think of it. To get a smooth pave, you need a smooth base. Ground needs to be level, with all holes and ruts removed, and capable to provide enough support. Unfortunately where you want to pave doesn’t always look that way, so it’s up to your paving contractor to grade the area, preparing for paving. 

Asphalt vs Concrete - Which Is Right For You?

Asphalt is officially America’s No 1. Recycled product, saving hundreds of millions of cubic yards of landfill space annually - but why should you use recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) in your projects?
 
Increased Life Span
Worried about how often you’ll have to refinish, resurface, or replace your paved project? Recycled asphalt mixtures age at a slower rate than traditional virgin mixes. Why? RAP is mixed with virgin aggregates and binder, and all of the binder has already completed oxidation, slowing down the rate of hardening. RAP is as durable as virgin asphalt, performance proving to be equally or better than the traditional counterpart. As the lifespan of traditional asphalt can reach up to 30 years with proper maintenance, just imagine how long your RAP projects can be.

Asphalt is America’s most recycled material - so it makes sense that asphalt materials can help you earn LEED credits, right? If you’re thinking about sustainability when beginning a new construction project, then you should also be thinking about the materials going into the project. The LEED system was created to help encourage sustainable building habits - and now LEED accreditation is highly desired for many reasons, both monetary and morally. Many cities, counties, and states require LEED certificate for public buildings.

You know why LEED credits are important - but how can you earn them?  

Parking lots are a necessary evil. For a nation built on personalized mobility, rather than the mass transport that is ubiquitous and well-loved across Europe, we need places to store our cars while we’re off shopping, working, and exercising at the gym (since cars are immobile 95% of the time). Yet for all of the societal, environmental and aesthetic ills pinned on the forlorn parking lot, recent innovations in parking lot design may just pave the way for a more positive relationship between people and our parking spots.

How do you know when its time for parking lot resurfacing? The answer will help inform budgets, planning calendars, and construction timelines. Are there visual cues such as cracks or dips? Or is there a reliable timeframe for standard parking lot resurfacing, such as every 10 years?

Simply because a parking lot is showing wear and tear, serious cracking, or standing water does not necessarily mean it needs to be replaced. Resurfacing a parking lot is a great way to boost curb appeal without investing a lot of money.

Asphalt is durable, resilient and low-maintenance. The process of paving with asphalt is not difficult, but proper asphalt installation requires heavy equipment that most homeowners do not possess – specifically, a 3,000-pound twin drum roller for compacting soil. A properly installed asphalt driveway will last 30 to 40 years with little maintenance. So the question is: how to pave a driveway properly?

The primary steps for how to pave a driveway are straightforward – from removing the existing surface to grading and refinishing the driveway. However there are several key steps that will mean the difference between a smooth, long lasting driveway, and one filled with cracks and puddles.

Crushed asphalt is an environmentally-friendly material that can help reduce cost and bid prices for hot mix asphalt materials, has been proven to deliver excellent performance, and may contribute to LEED requirements. It is commonly used for a wide range of construction purposes, however additional possibilities exist that aren’t top-of-mind for most designers and builders.