There are many different approaches to proper asphalt maintenance. Overlay, seal coat, crack sealing, proper cleaning, patching, etc. are all difference maintenance options that may or may not be useful in your situation and the weather and traffic that your asphalt surfacing is subject to. At ACM we can help you develop maintenance plans and budgets or provide plans and specifications to make sure your asphalt is properly maintained or repaired.

Asphalt fails for a variety of reasons. It can crack from cold temperatures if it is not designed to withstand the winter weather, it can crack from repeated heavy loads due to inadequate thickness or inadequate base design. It can be improperly installed, either too thin or not properly compacted, by a less than quality contractor. It can oxidize with age and begin to degrade, or it can simply be damaged from oil-based products spilled on it. It is important to use someone experienced both in design and construction to achieve a good long-lasting project.

ACM is a company that provides expert design, consultation, site and construction management services for anyone who owns an existing asphalt pavement or needs a new asphalt pavement or stormwater solution.  With over 30 years of experience in asphalt pavement design, construction and repair, you will be confident that you are getting the best reccomendations or solution to your ongoing maintenance needs.  Know what you need before you call a contractor and ensure that you are getting the best quality product at the most affordable price.  Alway know what your buying before you buy. 

For homeowners and business owners, the commonly used method of maintaining or repairing your asphalt is to call 2 or 3 different contractors to come out and give you a bid  to fix your asphalt. What happens is the owner typically gets three differing opinions on what they "should" do to repair or maintain the asphalt.  These suggestions can vary significantly in price and none of them may be the proper repair or maintenance for your specific situation. It would be like asking a contractor to remodel your house without an architect or interior design professional. When you call ACM, you get an expert in asphalt paving that has seen or fixed virtually every asphalt situation or failure imaginable. You can trust that you will get honest, professional advice with your best interest in mind, you will also feel confident that your money is being spent on a project or repair that will work. You will also have a partner on your side to help you evaluate the bids you receive and the contractor you select. We will be there to answer all your questions.

Asphalt Concrete is a blend of asphalt oil, and crushed aggregate. Think of the production of asphalt much like baking a cake. The ingredients are mixed together in varying amounts and heated to a specified temperature (up to 360 degrees F) during that mixing process. This is done in an asphalt plant and the ingredients are added in very specific quantities, as per the specified “Asphalt Mix Design”, to produce the desired results. The Hot Mixed Asphalt Concrete is then moved to the project in hauling trucks, placed to a specified depth and properly compacted all before the asphalt cools to its working temperature where it becomes a permanent surface referred to as a new Asphalt Concrete Pavement.

Over the last 30 years, asphalt has made major leaps in innovation and technological improvements. Superpave, PG oil grading, perpetual pavement, recycled asphalt pavement and shingle recycling, warm mix, thinlift and porous asphalt are just some of the innovations that are mentioned above. Someone that is not involved in the industry daily can quickly fall behind on the latest advancements in the asphalt pavements. That is why ACM is here. We can provide the most creative and leading design innovations and maintenance solutions anywhere. It is our goal to look at all aspects of any project to guarantee the customer gets the most out of every dollar spent. We realize that the asphalt pavement system can be a vital part of the long-term success of your project and we are committed to make sure you as the owner get what you expect and deserve because Asphalt Isn’t Just Black!

Well you know what asphalt is, a mixture of asphalt oil and crushed aggregate that is viscous at high temperatures and hardens as it cools to average air temperatures as the oil viscosity increases. Concrete is basically a mixture of aggregates, sand, water and cement. Concrete does not “dry” as is commonly thought, it hardens through a chemical reaction between the cement and the water. Concrete is a very useful product in constructing buildings and bridges but not always the best choice for a traffic surfacing. An average parking lot would be designed using 2” of asphalt or 6” of concrete, this in part makes asphalt cheaper for initial construction when budgeting construction costs. Concrete typically has a longer life than asphalt without repairs, but asphalt can be repaired or maintained over the course of its life. When concrete fails, it must be removed and replaced. Many studies nationwide show that when it comes to total life-cycle costs asphalt is cheaper than concrete in almost every case. Asphalt projects take far less time to construct as well since it does not need “curing” time like concrete. When asphalt is cool, it is complete. As a good rule of thumb asphalt is smoother, quieter, cheaper and faster than concrete.

Porous asphalt looks and acts much the same as traditional asphalt with one difference. Porous Asphalt allows the water to drain through it at up to 100 inches per hour, making it able to withstand the inflow from the largest of storms. It is typically placed over an open graded base aggregate that is designed to collect the storm water and hold it in a reservoir below the asphalt surface where it slowly filters back through the soils and into the Earth’s aquifer. This can be a very useful application in many commercial projects where drainage is a potential problem or storm systems are prohibitively costly. This is also environmentally friendly as it reduces or eliminates surface runoff into stream and rivers as the storm water is retained and treated naturally on site by filtering through the soil, as nature intended.

As you can see above, porous asphalt is a great option to help the environment. The fact that asphalt is 100% recyclable and over 80% of all old asphalt removed is recycled, making it the most recycled product in the world is also a bonus. The production of asphalt has also become the number one beneficial use of composite roofing shingles. There are currently over 11 million tons of both tear-off and manufactured waste shingles nationwide available each year and much of this goes into the production of asphalt. Making shingles, like asphalt, 100% recyclable. Asphalt has many more advantages; due to recent technological advancements it is now being produced at a vastly reduced temperature (warm mix), which greatly reduces both the carbon footprint and the release of fumes released that produce the “asphalt smell”. Asphalt contributes to a reduction of the urban heat island effect over concrete surfaces. In production, laydown and total lifecycle maintenance asphalt’s carbon footprint, by weight, is 1/3 that of concrete. If you are looking for LEED credits on your new project, look at your asphalt. Through recycling, locally produced products, drainage solutions, etc. there are many LEED credits available for use in your building certification and most of these practices are already being used in most projects being built today.

Asphalt is 100% recyclable and when it is recycled it is a direct 1:1 reduction in the amount of new (virgin) aggregates and oil required in the mix design. Due to the cost savings and reduction of environmental impact of mining additional resources recycling old asphalt pavements has become commonplace nationwide. Most asphalts produced today contain 30% recycled material. Over 80% of all old asphalt pavements removed are recycled and made into new asphalt, making Recycled Asphalt Pavement the most recycled product in the world today.

Asphalt is essentially black. There are ways to put different colors in the asphalt during production, but it is VERY expensive. The best way to achieve a different color is to use a “StreetPrint” type product. It is a coating that is placed on the surface after the asphalt is completed. The surface texture can change the look as asphalt can be made with different maximum aggregate sizes. Commonly these are ¾”, ½” and 3/8”. A good rule of thumb is the smaller the aggregate, the more consistent the finish surface will look.

The Asphalt Mix Design is the recipe for baking the cake. It contains not only the amount of different sized aggregates and liquid asphalt to be mixed together, but the amount and type of recycled pavement and the temperature that all the ingredients should be mixed at depending on the type of liquid asphalt oil used in the design. An asphalt Mix Design is developed in a laboratory, by trained technicians, under very strict conditions to meet certain specifications depending on the desired end use. For example, a mix design for a driveway will differ drastically from one that is designed for an interstate or airport runway.

Asphalt oil or liquid asphalt is the binder that holds the aggregates together. Asphalt is the heaviest form of petroleum oil and is liquid at room temperature but has a very high viscosity (inability to flow). The warmer it gets the lower the viscosity. That is why asphalt concrete must be mixed at high temperatures so that it flows freely and can coat all the aggregates with the proper film thickness quickly. There are many different asphalts that are typically graded using a Performance Grading (PG) system. This system describes the oil due to its high and low working temperatures in degrees Celsius. For example, a “PG 64-28” asphalts working condition is 64 C to -28 C.

Asphalt aggregate is a crushed rock that typically makes up the majority, by weight, of the asphalt mix design. It is usually crushed and screened into a minimum of three different aggregate size piles, called stockpiles, that are metered into the asphalt plant at varying amounts to achieve the desired cumulative gradation in the Hot Mixed Asphalt. Typically, these piles will be sorted into sizes such as ¾” – ½”, ½” – ¼”, ¼”-#10 and #10-0

Base aggregate is the crushed, well graded, aggregate layer, typically ¾” -0, placed in the construction process just prior to placing the base lift of asphalt (in thick asphalt design sections) or the final working asphalt surface in sections of 3” of asphalt or less. The base lift serves many purposes; It acts as a leveling layer graded to tight tolerances so that the asphalt surface can be placed in a consistent depth. It provides a stable surface, with relatively low moisture content to prevent frost heaving. Finally, it provides a solid base layer so that adequate compactive force can be applied to the asphalt to achieve proper compaction to ensure a long-lasting asphalt pavement.

Asphalt Mix Designs vary depending on the environmental conditions and the anticipated traffic loads or ESAL’s (Equivalent Single Axle Loads) anticipated over the lifetime of the project. The amount of ESAL determined the level of the mix design and the environmental conditions determine the Performance Grade of the oil to be specified. For example, a Highway asphalt mix design would have dramatically different blends of aggregate and oil than a homeowner’s driveway due to the significantly different anticipated ESAL’s. The grade of oil is determined by the high and low temperatures of the anticipated climate. An oil used in southern Arizona will be vastly different than the oil used in Northern Montana. Finally, the type and percentage of recycled material used affects the amounts of virgin aggregate and oil needed in the mix design.

Asphalt is tested in a variety of ways. The aggregates and asphalt oil are tested prior to production to ensure that they are quality products. The Asphalt mix is tested after production at the plant to compare it to the laboratory design to confirm that the producer is making the right product. The placing temperature is monitored in the field and the compaction density of the finished product is tested and monitored during construction, so the contractor knows that it is providing a high quality, long lasting project. Finally, after placing and compacting the asphalt most highways are tested to ensure that they were built to the specified smoothness required by the owner.