The weather is nicer. The snow is melting. The potholes, emerging. Do you know what that means? Construction season is upon us. Suppose you work in road construction and you’re curious about new methods to make your life a little easier. This article is for you. Every business is trying to reduce costs that cut from its profits. In the road construction business, there are likely a handful of inefficiencies, but we’re covering two: equipment breakdowns and unproductive use of labour.
Road work is a dirty job!
Asphalt consists of cement, gravel, and sand which is mixed with sticky black bitumen. The bitumen is like the glue, or like the melted marshmallow that turns your rice Krispies from a boring cereal mix to a tasty treat. Bitumen is the binding agent. As you can imagine, if it makes rock stick together, then it’s bound to stick to your clothes, your shoes, your tools, your vehicles, and your equipment. This is where the problem arises.
Asphalt is initially hot and “viscous”, almost like mild lava which is spread across the ground. As it cools, it hardens into the road you will eventually drive down. Similarly, when asphalt is on your vehicle or equipment and it cools, it’s very difficult to remove. On top of that, road work is a busy season, and the only time to clean some of the equipment is in the off-season, once layers upon layers of asphalt have accumulated on every surface, crack, and crevasse. Other vehicles, such as Priming vehicles, require much more attention throughout the season.
The “old school” method
Simply put, the result of equipment accumulating too much asphalt is breakdown. And these machines are not cheap to repair or replace. The traditional method of cleaning is crew members using harmful chemicals and pressure washing to break up asphalt. This is where the second problem arises: cleaning with traditional methods is hazardous, repetitive, and mostly ineffective. The chemicals have to “sink in” and sit before the pressure washer can break up the bitumen. The entire process takes about 1 week for 1 truck, and the truck still has remnants of a sticky-black residue. This is where dry ice blasting comes in.
The “new school” method
Dry ice blasting first and most are contracted out to a service provider. So right off the top, the crew members that would otherwise be pressure washing and exposed to hazardous chemicals are “freed-up” to work on more productive projects. Furthermore, what used to take an entire week of work, is now compressed into a single day of dry ice blasting. The reason is dry ice blasting is so effective making sticky-thing not so sticky, with such a velocity that the material is broken upon contact. Above all that, dry ice blasting cleans right down to the substrate, leaving no evidence of bitumen, with the equipment looking like new again. Technically speaking, dry ice blasting has 3 cool effects that enable it to be so effective. There’s a tremendous amount of kinetic energy and “thermal shock” which breaks up debris, combined with the property of sublimation, where the dry ice turns to gas on contact, which makes it non-abrasive to the substrate.
Conclusion
In summary, dry ice blasting will save road contractors time and money by being a far more effective method at cleaning equipment and freeing up labour. With contractors wanting to cut costs where they can, outsourcing their cleaning to a dry ice blaster will help them keep more of their profit. It’s a very smart move business-wise, which is why Carmad Industrial is offering contractors a discounted rate to clean one of their vehicles as a demonstration of how dry ice blasting could benefit the entire fleet. To take advantage of this offer, contact us today by calling us at 587-809-6529.