Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction October/November 2017

THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF NATIONAL PAVEMENT EXPO

Improve Your Snow Removal Efficiency

MAINTENANCE & RECONSTRUCTION

Sweeping for Profit How to Protect

Against Risk-Transfer Clauses

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2017

21

LateSeason Pavement Maintenance Tips Century Fence, WisDOT Test Orange WORK ZONE MARKINGS

NAPSA Developing National Sweeping Standard How to Get the Most from Your MECHANICAL SWEEPER

› › › www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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INSIDE LOOK!

NPE 2018 Technical Topics

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What’s Inside

October/November 2017

PAVEMENT FEATURES 16

Why Drivers Are Seeing Orange in Wisconsin

Century Fence, Wisconsin DOT test orange markings in work zones.

20 NAPSA Developing

ANSI Standard

Sweeping association nears milestone in development of national standard.

26 How to Get the

Most from Your Mechanical Sweeper Proper and timely maintenance improves performance and extends sweeper life.

38 How to Construct a

Gain a better understanding of contracts – and follow these suggestions – to protect your interests.

Pavement Maintenance Tips

Follow these guidelines to make sure your late-season jobs are successful – and profitable..

18

Smooth Testing Track

22 How to Defend

Against Risk-Transfer Contract Clauses

48 21 Late-season

Granite Construction West surpassed smoothness expectations in reconstruction of Honda Proving Center of California.

44 Contractors’

16

Choice: Cold Planer Attachments

How to properly pair cold planers and carriers.

ON THE COVER Designed to fit on a variety of chassis, Johnston North America’s RT655 regenerative air road sweeper features forward-facing “digger” gutter brooms and a full-width suction head for maximum sweeping speed. Photo courtesy Johnston North America, Mooresville, NC.

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Vol. 32, No. 5 October/November 2017

Published and copyrighted 2017 by AC Business Media Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

PAVEMENT

Subscription policy: Individual subscriptions are available without charge in the U.S. only to pavement maintenance contractors, producers and government employees involved in paving or pavement maintenance; dealers, and distributors of pavement maintenance equipment or materials; and others with similar business activities. Complete the subscription form at www. forconstructionpros.com or use your company letterhead giving all the information requested. Publisher reserves the right to reject nonqualified subscribers. One year subscriptions for nonqualified individuals: $35.00 U.S.A., $60.00 Canada and Mexico, and $85.00 all other countries (payable in U.S. funds, drawn on U.S. bank). Single copies available (prepaid only) $10.00 each (U.S., Canada & Mexico), $15.00 each (International). Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction (ISSN 1098-5875), is published eight times per year: January, February, March/April, May, June/July, August/ September, October/November, December by AC Business Media Inc., 201 N. Main St., Fort Atkinson, WI 53538. Periodicals postage paid at Fort Atkinson, WI and additional entry offices.

POSTMASTER: Please send change of address to Pavement, PO Box 3605, Northbrook, IL 60065-3605. Printed in the USA. Canada Post PM40612608. Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction, PO Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2.

PAVEMENT MAINTENANCE & RECONSTRUCTION is proudly supported by these associations:

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What’s Inside October/November 2017 DEPARTMENTS 6

Editorial

8

Hot Mix

NAPSA... Setting the Standard

The Latest News in the Industry

12 10 Just In

Select New Products and Upgrades 12 NPE Buzz

Technical Topics to Drive NPE 2018

30 Pavement Profit Center 50 Classified

Ads

58 On The Job

5 Ways to Improve Snow Removal Efficiency

59

59 Your Business Matters

Standing Still Can Kill Your Business 61 NAPSA Report

Connecting the Power Sweeping Dots 61 WSA Update

Why to Rely on Social Media Marketing 62 PCTC Dispatch

RTS in the Real World: Ecotoxicity

64

8

63 Technology Update

Digital Lag is Contractor’s Easiest Competitive Advantage 64 Contractor Snapshot

Connecticut Startup Doubles Up Every Year 65 Index 66 Tailgate Talk

Can Contractors Bring America Back?

Get fast, relevant product information in the Buyers Guide at

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4 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Editorial Allan Heydorn, Editor

NAPSA ...

Setting the Standard

ONE OF THE most common and most dangerous problems facing the power sweeping industry (and most contractors for that matter) is the egregious demands property owners make on the contractors they hire. Embedded in the contracts property managers use are clauses and wording that in effect transfers most (or all) risk to the contractor – even if the contractor isn’t involved in the activity that created the risk.

Contractors, understandably, often sign the contract because they want the work and they want to establish

or maintain the relationship with the customer.

The North American Power Sweeping Association (NAPSA) has had enough and has developed a national power sweeping standard through the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The draft has been sent to NAPSA members for comment and is on its way to becoming an accepted ANSI standard (see article page 20).

Congrats to NAPSA! Associations need to do for individual contractors what those contractors can’t do for themselves, and developing

a national standard that will help protect contractors from absorbing unreasonable risk transfer is a perfect example of that. So a tip of the hat to NAPSA – keep at it should you encounter any roadblocks.

Even when adopted, the ANSI standard doesn’t by itself protect contractors.

What it will do is level the playing field by defining a “scope of work” and detailing “best practices” – essentially a national standard of performance. ANSI-certified contractors who perform according to the standard will be able to use that certification

as part of their defense should they get dragged into a frivolous lawsuit.

Until that standard is accepted by ANSI, “How to Defend Against Risk-Transfer Contract Clauses” (page 22) offers insights into how best to combat those clauses that are in many contracts. It’s geared toward sweeping contractors but it can be applied to any contractor who encounters the problematic wording.

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6 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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TRUSTED ON SOME PRETTY IMPORTANT PAVEMENT...

Elgin® is the Official Sweeper of NASCAR® Green Whether sweeping some of the most well known race tracks in America or cleaning the streets in your neighborhood – Elgin sweepers have a reputation for performance, reliability, durability. With over 100 years of experience, a full line of sweepers for every application, and industry-leading green technology – Elgin can always be trusted to get the job done, and take care of the environment along the way.

Visit elginsweeper.com to learn more about Elgin’s trusted performance – or tune into any NASCAR race to witness it for yourself.

www.elginsweeper.com 847-741-5370 ©2017 Elgin Sweeper Company

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Hot Mix

WSA’s First Sweeper Roundup Draws 100 The World Sweeping Association’s (WSA) Sweeper Roundup, held Sept. 14-16 in At a midway stop the drivers exited the cab, grabbed a handheld Kansas City, MO, drew almost 100 people and received widespread support from blower and, within a 15-second allotted timeframe, did their manufacturers, according to Ranger Kidwell-Ross, executive director of WSA. best to corral an assortment of simulated debris — consisting of a What Kidwell-Ross called “America’s first independent conference for power soccer ball, three tennis balls, five ping pong balls and a wet diaper sweeping contractors, began Sept. 14 with a kickoff reception and dinner party — into a nearby plastic crate. Photo courtesy Roderic Moore which provided an opportunity for contractors and manufacturers’ reps to get acquainted on an informal basis. Also included was a screening of the 2002 “Junkyard Wars” television show where engineers from Schwarze and Elgin faced off to build competitive air and broom sweepers from junkyard parts. The leader of the winners, Jim Adair, who is now Schwarze’s director of product management, was in attendance.

The morning of Sept. 15 seminars were offered two at a time, enabling contractors to attend two sessions total. One seminar, “Maintenance to Minimize Downtime and Maximize Vehicle Longevity,” was streamed live on WorldSweeper.com’s Facebook page. Kidwell-Ross said plans are to provide all attendees with video links to all of the sessions.

Seminars were followed by a “Sweeper Rodeo.” Overseen by a judging team led by Kansas City contractor Ryan Bertholdi of Moonlight Sweeping LLC, more than two dozen participants were timed as they navigated a narrow, winding course in the Schwarze Gale Force. The course also skills with a handheld blower and backing between a row of “penalty grapes” to see how close they could get to a dumpster without actually hitting it. The Rodeo was won by Tobias Weissenrieder, a representative of German sweeper manufacturer Aebi-Schmidt.

Ranger Kidwell-Ross said more than a dozen The evening portion of the Roundup was held at the Holsman Stables event center, also owned by Gale different sweeper models Holsman, president of host sweeping contractor, American Sweeping Inc. The night featured a campfire, hayrides, were on display from BBQ from legendary Kansas City restaurant Jack Black’s, and music on an outdoor stage by one of Kansas City’s companies including top bands, the Selle Brothers.

Elgin, Global, MASCO, Industry sponsors donated a wide variety of items to an ongoing raffle, which generated an additional $1,000 NiteHawk, RAVO, Scarab, Schwarze Industries and to the charity event’s coffers. Top prize was a scale model of a vintage Elgin Whitewing sweeper that was hand Well Made at one of the made by McKinley Page. The model sported a rotating gutter and main broom and the model even moved on its nation’s largest Harley own power on a flat surface. Colorado-based contractor, Robert Pitman, was the winning entrant. Money raised Davidson dealerships, by the raffle, along with proceeds from the entire weekend event, to which the normal venue rental fees and all Gail’s H-D. Photo courtesy labor was donated, will go to WSA’s Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Roderic Moore

Schwarze, 1-800-SWEEPER to Hold Raffle for Hurricane Recovery Schwarze Industries, Huntsville, AL, and the 1-800-SWEEPER Foundation have joined forces in the Schwarze Industries Hurricane Recovery Raffle to aid in the recovery following hurricanes Irma and Harvey.

“The goal of the Schwarze Industries Hurricane Recovery Raffle is to raise money to aid those affected by hurricanes this 2017 hurricane season,” according to the raffle website.

“With the help of the 1-800-SWEEPER Foundation, a 501 3 (c) charitable organization, net proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross to help those affected by these devastating storms.”

First prize in the raffle is a new Schwarze Supervac Updraft ($69,900 value); second prize is a Sweeper Sim Training Simulator with a one-year user subscription ($7,000 value).

Only 1,000 raffle tickets will be sold. Tickets are $100 each; 3 for $275; and 5 for $450. The raffle drawing will take place Feb. 10, 2018 and winners will be announced at National Pavement Expo, Feb. 7-10 in Cleveland.

For details and to buy a raffle ticket visit 1800SweeperFoundation.com. All tickets must be purchased online.

Soundcore’s Sweeping Corp.

Acquires Reilly Sweeping Sweeping Corporation of America (SCA), a portfolio company of Soundcore Capital Partners private equity firm, has acquired Reilly Sweeping, Fairless Hills, PA, a provider of parking lot and street sweeping services to the Mid-Atlantic region for more than 45 years. No financial terms were disclosed.

“With a majority of its operations contiguous to our existing locations, Reilly solidifies our leading position in these markets and further expands our platform for additional growth opportunities,” said Christopher Valerian, SCA’s president and CEO. With the acquisition of Reilly Sweeping, SCA operates a fleet of 350 units through 21 locations.

8 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Just In

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GuardTop CoolSeal is an ultra-high performance asphalt-based sealcoat that achieves lower surface temperatures with its lighter colored surface and higher reflectivity.

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BVP 10/30 Single Direction Plate Bomag Americas Inc. Weighing just over 100 lbs., the new BVP 10/30 compactor is the lightest single-direction vibratory plate in its class and features a balanced lifting point for easy loading/unloading.

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NPE Buzz Allan Heydorn, Editor

Technical Topics to Drive

NPE 2018

11 new topics among 25 technical sessions for show in Cleveland In addition to 54 management and technical sessions at NPE 2018, Cleveland can boast of being home to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

EACH YEAR ROUGHLY half of all National Pavement Expo conference sessions focus on technical topics and the 2018 NPE, Feb. 7-10 at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, will be no exception. Of the 54 sessions 25 will feature technical training issues – and 11 of those technical sessions will be new.

Here’s a sampling:

Sealcoating Bill Maclean, The Brewer Company, will be the 2018 presenter of NPE’s annual Basic Sealcoating Principles session.

He’ll cover in detail the sealcoating process, including sealcoating materials, mix design, equipment and how to use it, and application techniques. In addition he’ll discuss some important “Dos and Don’ts” of sealcoating and provide on-the-job troubleshooting tips.

Girish Dubey, president of STAR Inc., will tell contractors how to Take Your Sealcoating to the Next Level, in this new "beyond the basics" session. Dubey will cover “the intricacies of sealer composition,” “best practice” methods of application (for one, two or multiple coats of sealer), the importance of applying the right amount of sealer through determination of wet and dry film thickness, drying and cure to achieve optimum performance, altering mix designs to suit the pavement and climate

conditions, and selection and proper use of additives.

In another new session, Nick Howell, T & N Asphalt Services, will present Succeeding in Commercial Sealcoating to help contractors step up to tackle large commercial sealcoating jobs. Howell, a Pavement Advisory Board member, will discuss estimating larger jobs, price negotiating with your supplier, insurance, equipment, partnering /subcontracting with contractors, "as well as other 'been there' tricks."

Pavement Repair & Maintenance In Basic Pavement Defects: Causes, Solutions – and How to Set Your Price, Nick Howell connects the dots among the pavement defect, its cause, the “best practices” repair solution – and your price. For each defect Howell will work through a job-costing example to uncover cost elements to include before adding profit and determining your price.

Improving Your Infrared Pavement Repair Operations will be presented by Tom Eosso, Eosso Brothers Paving, a Pavement Advisory Board member who has become the go-to infrared contractor at NPE’s conference. He’ll cover infrared basics and how to perform the work (with a step-by-step explanation), relying on photos and on-the-job video. Eosso will “work through” examples a variety of repairs and show field techniques.

Pavement Advisory Board member, Todd Bruening, Parking Lot Maintenance, will present a new session, Parking Lot Cracksealing: How You Can Improve Your Operation. Bruening will work through the cracksealing operation his crews go through from pulling up on the site to finishing the job. He’ll cover the technical side of how cracks are prepared and sealed – including “best practices” and tools and equipment that are more efficient and effective.

Asphalt Paving Nigel McKay, Weiler, will present a new session, Fundamentals of Asphalt Pavers and Asphalt Paving – an introductory class that covers each component of the paver – augers, screws, conveyors and screeds – including what each component does, how each works, how the components work together, and how to adjust components to get the desired end result of a high-quality mat.

Diagram It! How to Pave a Parking Lot & a Cul-de-sac from Start to Finish, by paving jobsite specialist John Ball, Top Quality Paving, will use step-by-step diagrams (and some video) to teach how to determine the amount of mix needed, how to determine haul truck size and delivery schedule, how to “line-out” the job and plan the paving, and how to achieve the required slope and density.

An annual NPE paving expert, Jim Scherocman, P.E., Consulting Engineer will present Effective Compaction of Hot Mix Asphalt, in which he will outline the basic elements of compaction and the use of static steel wheel, pneumatic tire and vibratory steel wheel rollers.

He’ll cover compaction of both stiff and tender mixtures and will emphasize the use of different rollers and rolling patterns for different paving situations.

12 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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NPE Buzz

How to Run the “Perfect Paving Project” is a new paving session from Pavement Advisory Board member Connie Lorenz, Asphalt Restoration Services, who has developed a “pursuit of perfection” session that will cover the essential pre-con meeting, tips on communicating with clients, how to plan for and handle the “unexpected issues,” and how to lead a “team walk-through.”

Pavement Marking In addition to its annual Parking Lot Layout & Striping Basics, by Robert Liles, Robert Liles Parking Lot Service; How to Stripe the Tough Jobs, by Pat Mendick, Miktom Inc.; and Improve Striping Productivity Using Today’s Technology,

by Chad Jung and Scott Langton, Superior Striping, NPE 2018 will offer two new pavement marking sessions.

Kurt Gruenberg, RAE Products, will present Thermoplastic Pavement

Markings & Durable Liquid Paint Alternatives, focusing on extruded and preformed hot-applied thermoplastic marking materials, as well as durable liquid marking paints. He’ll cover equipment, installation, longevity, pricing, and will provide an overview of Chlorinated Rubber, ‘Liquid Thermoplastic’ (Hi-Build type III), and Acetone Acrylic – including advantages, disadvantages, recommended uses, and application tips.

Don Sokolow, Advanced Pavement Marking, will help contractors broaden their business in How to Expand Your Striping to 3 New Markets: municipal, airport, and racetrack striping. He will detail bond and insurance requirements, equipment needs, safety requirements, production rates, inspection insights, and material requirements.

For details including the full four-day schedule visit www.nationalpavementexpo.com.

Asphalt Institute to Conduct 3 NPE sessions As he has for a number of years, Wayne Jones, Asphalt Institute (AI) senior regional engineer, will present three sessions National Pavement Expo.

Several years ago Jones and AI began presenting a cornerstone session of NPE, a 3-hour workshop titled Understanding Pavement

Evaluation, Preservation and repair Options. Because contractors are

constantly facing pavement repairs in addition to overlays and new construction, this annual workshop covers “the distresses and cure options for all types of pavement defects.”

Jones will cover “best practices” for repairing an asphalt pavement, provide tips on how to “up-sell” operations to solve long-term problems for customers, and how applying the right treatment at the right time can increase the overall service life of a pavement.

In his Materials Selection:

Matching the Right Materials to the Right Project, Jones answers questions such as: Can I pave a residential driveway with a DOT mix? How can I avoid customers holding up payment because the mat “looks too coarse”?

What is MSCR and will it change my operation? Developed specifically for the NPE, this session will provide basicplus knowledge of asphalt materials and mix designs to help make projects easier to pave, look better, sell faster, and be more profitable.

Introduction to Thickness Design and Pavement Distresses focuses

on the basics of pavement design and what makes pavements fall apart.

Jones will introduce free web-based thickness design tools that allow you to design exactly the pavement each customer wants. He will then discuss the distresses that attack asphalt pavements causing them to fail – with an eye toward helping contractors make the best-possible repair decisions for clients.

Attendees at each AI sessions will receive a certificate granting 1.5 or 3.0 Professional Development Hours (PDHs) depending on the length of the session.

For details and complete session descriptions visit www.nationalpavementexpo.com.

ForConstructionPros.com/10074781

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Striping

Allan Heydorn, Editor

Why Drivers are Seeing

ORANGE in Wisconsin Century Fence, Wisconsin DOT test orange markings in work zones IF YOU’RE A striping contractor, and particularly if you’re a long-line striping contractor, it might not be too long before you’ll need to add orange paint to your arsenal of marking materials.

That’s because a test program outside Milwaukee, WI, has been using orange markings, both paint and epoxy, to delineate temporary lane changes within work zones on the Zoo Interchange (Zoo IC) pavement reconstruction project.

Brian DuPont, construction oversight engineer, Wisconsin DOT (WisDOT), says WisDOT began considering orange markings in the winter of 2014, the year the Zoo IC project began. The project involves four miles of construction in one direction and five miles in the cross

direction and the interchange handles more than 350,000 vehicles a day.

“Drivers didn’t seem to have much trouble in summer but in winter with snow, ice and salt on the pavement they had difficulty tracking lane shifts, following the white lines, and often struggled to stay in their lanes,” DuPont says.

He says WisDOT grew concerned because there were going to be almost constant lane shifts throughout the job which lasts through 2018. So they set out to provide, via a test program approved by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), orange markings in work zones.

Why Orange?

According DuPont, orange markings have been used in other countries to delineate lane shifts in work zones. In Switzerland, for example, orange markings are used to delineate work zones – and they don’t even

remove the white lane markings. “People just know they are supposed to follow the orange and they do,” DuPont says.

He says Australia uses white all the time for regular markings, and yellow all the time for work zones. “When the markings are a different color it’s clearer to drivers that this is what they’re supposed to follow,” he says. “Orange represents work zone conditions in the United States. It’s the same color as cones and drums and signs and people have told us it makes more sense.”

So WisDOT recommended to FHWA that using the orange markings might make it easier for drivers to distinguish ghost lines – the lines left behind in the pavement when original lane markings are scarified – and to avoid driver confusion.

Because orange markings are not an approved process in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices

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WisDOT used orange markings throughout each workzone, but Brian DuPont says another option is using the orange only at the beginning and end of the workzones indicating the lane shifts, in which case orange tape might be a preferred material.

Are Orange Markings in Our Future?

WisDOT’s Brian DuPont says FHWA doesn’t take into consideration weather conditions when making rules for use of marking materials, so for orange to be adopted by the MUTCD it would have to be successful year-round.

“We and FHWA would like another state – especially a warm weather state – to test it out to see if the drivers like it there as much as they did in Wisconsin,” DuPont says. “If so, the orange might become an approved marking color in work zones throughout the country. We could end up making all lane shifts orange. You can see them from a long ways away.”

DuPont says that another option, as opposed to orange paint or epoxy throughout the whole work zone lane shift, is to use orange marking only at the beginning and end of the lane change. “If you grab their attention for areas where it changes at both ends of a work zone then maybe that’s all you need,” he says.

“In that case maybe tape is the answer. Tape has the potential to be a better tool because when you’re doing a shorter distance it’s not worth it to fire up a paint truck with orange for 500 feet. It’s better to shut the lanes down at night and put tape down and then open it up. But if you’re doing miles then a truck would be best.”

The same holds true when smaller road repairs are needed. “If you have a repair to make that disrupts the orange marking you don’t want to bring a truck out there filled with orange paint to replace a 12-foot line over a pothole you just repaired. So maybe tape can be used to supplement paint, when it’s not worth it to bring a truck out there.”

(MUTCD), WisDOT had to get permission from FHWA to use orange. DuPont says that after some negotiation FHWA approved a test of the orange markings for 18 months. Seven months into the test WisDOT went back to FHWA to ask them to extend the permission through the completion of the project in 2018, which they did.

Orange markings are now used in work zones throughout the entire project – that’s more than 100 lane shifts since 2014 where a typical project would include only three or four lane shifts.

DuPont says the construction phase requiring lane changes and orange markings should be completed by December.

Seventy-five percent of drivers surveyed think the orange markings are easier to see while 25% though them darker. But WisDOT thinks the 25% are reacting to the fact that white and yellow markings had no beads – so beads were added to the orange markings.

Finding a Contractor for Orange The contractor that did the first installation of orange epoxy only had trucks for yellow and white, so any time the orange installation was required they had to clean out a truck, apply the orange markings, and then clean the truck again so it could be used for white or yellow. The process was time consuming but worked – until spring when the marking season picked up and the contractor no longer wanted to do the work.

So WisDOT let the bid again, and Century Fence, Pewaukee, WI, got the job.

“The orange paint was part of the entire bid package for the Zoo IC project so we factored in what it would take, including use of an extra striping truck, and put the bid together,” says Tim McChesney, vice president of operations, Century Fence. “We bid on it knowing pretty much what we were getting into.”

Century Fence, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, employs 100 people peak season (half devoted to striping), generates half its sales from pavement marking and the other half from commercial and DOT fencing.

In addition being responsible for the

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Striping Contractors in the U.S. don't have a truck dedicated to orange material as they do for white and yellow. Century Fence had a truck that is used as a spare, which made it a little easier. But they still had to clean it out when it was needed for white or yellow, then again when orange was needed, which took up to a day on each end.

temporary and permanent striping on the Zoo IC job, Century Fence also handles a good portion of the fencing on the Zoo IC project.

According to McChesney, almost all the company’s pavement marking work is long-line striping and road marking, though the company does stripe parking lots when epoxy work is required.

In addition to long-line striping equipment, Century Fence has a complete fleet to handle just about any pavement marketing-related job including walkbehind units for stencils and crosswalks, grooving units to install pavement markers, and waterblasting units for marking removal. He says 90% of the contractor’s work is as a subcontractor.

“We have one unit that is not a fulltime striping unit for us. It’s a spare and we put orange paint or epoxy in that as we needed it,” McChesney says. “Then when we need it on another job we clean it out – it can take up to a day on both ends [cleaning yellow/white to orange and orange to yellow/white].

But that was part of our plan and we factored that in when we put the bid together.”

McChesney says that despite the additional time involved to prepare a truck for orange material, the job and all its work zone striping went smoothly.

“The GC, Walsh Construction, was very good about letting us know in advance when orange markings were going to be needed so we could prepare,” McChesney says, adding that the contractor usually got a three-week notice when orange would be needed. WisDOT also held weekly meetings every Wednesday that Walsh Construction attended at the Zoo IC office. Century Fence either had a representative at those meetings

when scheduling was discussed or the general contractor let Century Fence know following a meeting when orange markings would be needed.

McChesney says Century Fence trained six workers on the project in addition to a dedicated project supervisor. “Often just a few of the team were on the job, but when it was a bigger job and removal of old markings was required before the orange lines were placed, all six people plus the supervisor were out there,” he says.

“When we first started on the project Century Fence crews were out on the jobsite installing orange work zones every week for a while,” McChesney says. “Now it’s every couple of months.

It gradually dwindled as they progressed on the project and need the orange zone less and less as we began installing permanent markings.”

Walsh Construction handled traffic control and lighting for the night, and sometimes WisDOT was able to close down the entire road to make striping easier and safer.

McChesney says all work was done Because orange markings at night and aren't used in the U.S., the striping WisDOT and Century Fence crew had to be had difficulty finding a off the job by supplier for the orange material.

5:00 a.m. or face a penalty.

“So we made sure we had enough manpower on the on each night to make sure we hit the deadlines,” he says.

Finding Orange Material DuPont says that because orange is not an MUTCD-approved marking, the color isn’t readily available in the United States. So after reaching out to several markings manufacturers, WisDOT turned to Epoplex, which produces an orange epoxy for use in Canada.

“But when the contractor put it down we realized it was darker than we thought and darker than we wanted – we’d seen photos and samples but it was darker than that. So we talked with Epoplex and they agreed to create a fluorescent version of the epoxy,” DuPont says. “But while the fluorescent markings worked well in the winter, the ultraviolet light from the sun caused the fluorescent characteristics to fade to yellow by summer, so we ended up with confusing yellow markings all over the road.”

So WisDOT began searching again for a material, eventually working with Diamond Vogel to create a water-based latex orange paint. Unfortunately it had the opposite problem – it worked well in the summer but not in the winter because it didn’t stand up to the salt and weather and plowing. So WisDOT now uses the fluorescent epoxy for the winter months and latex for the summer months.

DuPont says the latex isn’t as bright as the epoxy so WisDOT decided to supplement the latex markings with plastic raised pavement markers between the skip lines. These markers worked well during the warm weather, but were plowed off in the winter.

Because the orange material was not readily available, WisDOT decided they would find and supply the orange material themselves as opposed to having the contractor locate it and supply it.

“If we left it up to the contractor to

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purchase we’d have to make sure it was what we wanted – and there wasn’t a lot of what we wanted available to us,” DuPont says. “We also supplied it ourselves because orange is not a color striping contractors use. So if there is any leftover we didn’t think it would be fair for the contractor to have to keep it and absorb that cost.”

So WisDOT selected the material and supplier and directed Century Fence through a change order to buy it so they could store it at the yard and load the trucks each day.

Drivers See Orange a Success DuPont says that as of September the Zoo IC project is 80% complete and most of the main work will be done by the end of the year. “We’re pretty much done putting down the orange paint, so when we move the lanes back we will remove the orange markings and install permanent white and yellow markings,” he says.

He says that surveys of drivers find that 75% like the orange markings and 25% think the orange is too dark or difficult to see.

“We think drivers had trouble seeing the orange markings because when you put down temporary markings you often don’t put ‘high quality’ beads in it because of the added expense,” DuPont says.

Some people commented that they could see the white/yellow lines better when they drove out of the work zone.

“We think that people reacted when they went through the orange and then went to the white and yellow, which have better beads in them. We think they were reacting to the beads and not to the color, so we decided to put beads in the orange.”

Century Fence experimented with different ways of improving visibility of the orange markings when they were wet. “We went above and beyond the standard bead package for them because that was a primary concern of the project and the drivers – they couldn’t see the lines, which is why they switched to orange to begin with,” McChesney

Orange Passes Tape Test As long as they were testing orange paint they decided to test orange tape too. WisDOT’s Brian DuPont says that when they realized they were going to have two lane shifts on bridges within two miles of each other they had a perfect opportunity of a test and a “control” segment.

“The traffic will go over both bridges at the same rate of speed and it will be the same traffic volume because the bridges are so close together,” he says.

So rather than flipping traffic one way and then flipping it back once a side of the bridge is completed, they set up a crossover work zone in orange tape on one bridge and another crossover in yellow and white on the other bridge.

Tape was from the same manufacturer so results could be as consistent as possible.

He says the University of Wisconsin tried to measure whether drivers acted differently in either section – do they stay in their lane better in the orange than the white, for example, but initial results are that there wasn’t a significant distinction in driver behavior between the two areas.

“But the survey said the drivers like the orange better,” DuPont says.

“If drivers like the orange better it’s because they can see it more clearly and it makes them feel more comfortable that they know where they’re supposed to go. So the survey results are what we’re going by.”

says. “We tried a couple of different approaches and they chose one of them and it seemed to really help people see the lines better.”

DuPont says he doesn’t know whether the orange markings in work zones will catch on in the United States. But he says WisDOT will put together a report for FHWA about its effectiveness on the Zoo IC project.

“We didn’t see a reduction in crashes but we didn’t see an increase in crashes either as the work zone got more complicated,” DuPont says. “It’s a very difficult thing to measure because crashes can be caused by all sorts of things. But we are satisfied the switch to orange markings made a better experience for the majority of the driving public.”

When they first started on the project Century Fence crews were out on the jobsite installing orange work zones every week.

Since 2014 Century Fence’s crews installed 4-inch and 8-inch orange lines in more than 100 work zones in the Zoo IC project. www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • October/November 2017 19

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Sweeping Allan Heydorn, Editor

NAPSA Developing ANSI Standard Sweeping association nears milestone in development of national standard CONTRACT SWEEPERS THROUGHOUT the country have grown increasingly frustrated in recent years as they are dragged into lawsuits by property managers and owners over issues which are clearly not the responsibility of the sweepers.

According to Scott Cerosky, Crum & Forster Insurance, this has happened largely because property owners and managers have used their contracts with contractors to gradually transfer risk from the property owners and managers to just about any entity – such as sweeping contractors and snow removal contractors – that has occasion to work on the property.

The lawsuits involved are notably slipand-fall cases, and as more and more lawsuits are brought, insurance rates for sweepers have skyrocketed, making it increasingly difficult to run a reasonably priced, profitable sweeping business.

About two years ago the North American Power Sweeping Association (NAPSA) decided something had to be done. This fall NAPSA will reach a key milestone in its development of an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard that would define “best practices” and “scope of work” for the power sweeping industry.

Once developed and adopted, the ANSI standard will provide a basis from which contracts can be negotiated and will provide contractors with a level of protection against the frivolous lawsuits that have become the bane of the sweeping industry.

“NAPSA’s goal is to bring something to the industry that will benefit the contractors and create a more level playing field,” says NAPSA board member David McCaskill, Accusweep & Landscape Inc., Columbia, SC. NAPSA committee member Jay Presutti, East Coast Industrial Services,

Pine Bush, NY, says that when a sweeper (or really any contractor) is included in a lawsuit, one of the first things the attorneys ask is “Are there any industry standards out there that represent the industry?” The next thing they ask is “Did the contractor follow those standards?”

Once an ANSI standard is approved the answer to the first question will become Yes. Then contractors who are ANSI certified can demonstrate how they fulfilled their part of the contract as they should have – according to the ANSI standard.

But until a standard is developed and adopted, sweepers are almost at the mercy of their clients, essentially forced to sign contracts that transfer virtually all risk to the contractor whether or not the contractor’s work played a role in an accident. That’s because property managers and owners put language in their contracts that transfers liability to sweeping, snow removal and other contractors.

“The property owners’ risk managers have done their job and created contracts that transfer risk to the contractor,” Cerosky says. “Our industry has been remiss, but now that insurance costs are rising so dramatically and more and more sweepers are getting involved in frivolous lawsuits it’s time to do something.

“We’re looking to standardize language and to mitigate exposure via the contract,” Cerosky says. “We want to make sure the contract is predicated only on the scope of work the contractor is hired to perform, and developing this

ANSI standard is our mechanism to do that. Once it’s approved we will be in a position to be able to negotiate terms down the middle in these contracts, but it will all be based on scope of work.”

Status of the Standard Nancy Terry, NAPSA executive director, says development of an ANSI standard is a complex, multi-faceted process that NAPSA has been pursuing for some time. She says NAPSA is “taking a lot of care” to make sure the standard they’re writing is “global and very baseline” that encompasses processes and procedures all sweepers should be following. That way any contract sweeper can become ANSI certified to help protect the company from frivolous lawsuits and help reign in insurance rates.

The NAPSA members spearheading the development of the standard are Cerosky, McCaskill, Presutti and Gabe Vitale, C & L Sweeper Service, Jackson, NJ and they’ve been working on several aspects of development of the standard simultaneously.

“The first thing we need to do is get approved by ANSI as an organization that is able to write ANSI standards,” Presutti says. “We’re ready to submit everything we need to for that.”

In the meanwhile the team has also drafted what they hope to be the standard ANSI eventually will adopt and has sent the draft to NAPSA members throughout the country to review and comment. Once ANSI approves NAPSA as a certified standard writer, NAPSA expects to be ready to submit the standard to ANSI for approval.

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Presutti says NAPSA is piggybacking on work done by the Accredited Snow Contractors Association (ASCA) which has encountered problems similar to those facing the power sweeping industry.

“We can compare what we’re going through regarding frivolous slip-and-fall lawsuits with what the snow industry has gone through and we can learn from what they’ve done,” Presutti says. “Basically snow removal contractors got pulled into frivolous slip-and-fall cases because of contract language that transfers risk to the contractor rather than the property manager or property owners. We’re seeing the same issues in the sweeping industry.”

Presutti says that what the snow removal industry learned is that for there to be any legitimate reform and relief on contractual liability for slipand-fall claims, there had to be a basis for defense. The ASCA learned, and what NAPSA is following, is that adoption of

an industry-wide “best practices” standard can provide that defense.

“We are writing a standard that could be adopted by the power sweeping industry that kind of becomes case law,” Presutti says. “The idea is it’s a national standard that defines how sweeping should be done.”

ANSI Certification Open to All Sweepers Once adopted by ANSI, sweeping companies who want to receive ANSI certification will have to become ANSI certified through NAPSA; the plan is to require recertification each year.

“We want everyone in the industry to have access to ANSI certification,” McCaskill says. “It would not be mandatory but it would be accessible industry-wide. The whole intent is to normalize professionalism in the industry so that those companies that

get certified aren’t as susceptible to these kinds of lawsuits. We want everyone to have access to it and we think that once people realize what it is and the benefits, that becoming ANSI certified will become an industry best practice.”

Presutti says NAPSA is making this effort to combat the situation caused by the contracts property managers use.

“We’re never going to get the retailers and property managers to change their terms. But we’re looking to create a level playing field by establishing a standard of performance. Once these big box companies run out of places to go to get their sweeping done things are going to change,” Presutti says.

“That’s already happened in the snow industry big time. It’s actually starting to shock-wave itself through the snow industry. It’s our way of getting the playing field level.”

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Contracts

Scott Cerosky

How To Defend Against Risk-Transfer Contract Clauses B. The Buyer and Owner, along with their respective officers, agents and employees, shall be named as additional insureds for Ongoing Operations and Products / Completed Operations on the Subcontractor’s and any Sub-Subcontractor’s Commercial General Liability Policy. The Subcontractor shall continue to carry Completed Operations Liability Insurance for at least three (3) years after either ninety (90) days following Substantial Completion of the Work or final payment to the Subcontractor, whichever is later. . .

Gain a better understanding of contracts — and follow these suggestions — to protect your interests

What Is Risk Transfer?

Risk transfer is a risk management and control strategy that involves the contractual shifting of a pure risk from one party to another. When done effectively, risk transfer allocates risk equitably, placing responsibility for risk on designated parties and consistent with

D. COMMERCIAL GENERAL LIABILITY & UMBRELLA LIABILITY: In addition to the primary limits listed in A, B and C above, Subcontractor shall maintain an umbrella liability policy in the amount of Four Million Dollars ($4,000,000.00) Per Location.

With respect to the policies providing coverage under subsets B, C and D above, Buyer (and the fee owner of each property together with any and all mortgagees or other parties having privity of interest of the fee owner) shall be named as an Additional Insured on a primary and non-contributing basis; and for all of the policies listed above (under subsets A, B, C and D), above, there shall contain a waiver of subrogation in Buyer’s favor. All companies providing Subcontractor’s insurance shall have and maintain a minimum AM Best rating of A- or better.

›

PROPERTY OWNERS RELY on crucial relationships with contractors, subcontractors and vendors. In these relationships, agreements are made and written contracts are negotiated.

However, a growing trend involves contracts in which the contractors and vendors are assuming the liabilities of others. Savvy property owners recognize the benefit of transferring potential liability to others and negotiate contracts to their advantage.

Agreeing to assume other’s liability without limitations can be costly. By signing such agreements, you may be forced to pay for claims that normally would not be your responsibility.

Alternatively, as a condition of conducting business, you may be asking one of your subcontractors to sign an agreement to indemnify and hold you harmless. In either case, it is important to understand what you are agreeing to and limit any unintended consequences.

“Additional Insured”

The highlighted wording, which can be found in many contracts, exposes the contractor to possible liability and lawsuits by any fee-simple property owner and/or their respective mortgagees – these are the "Additional Insureds" referenced in the clause. This is especially important for those contractors that service town home complexes where the ownership interests of each individual town home and their respective mortgagees would be provided coverage. In this case the intent should only be to provide coverage for the owner of the common areas that are being serviced which in most instances is the Homeowners Association entity.

Suggested Change: Request to have the following phrase deleted to remove "Additional Insured" interests: (and the fee owner of each property together with any and all mortgagees or other parties having privity of interest of the fee owner).

their ability to control and insure against that risk. Essentially, liability should rest with whichever party has the most control over the sources of potential liability in addition to having it relative and specific to the scope of work defined in the contract.

Risk Transfer Methods INSURANCE: Risk transfer is most often accomplished through an insurance policy. This is a voluntary arrangement between an insurance company and the policyholder, whereby the insurance company assumes strictly defined

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SUBCONTRACTOR’S INSPECTION: Subcontractor acknowledges that the Subcontractor has examined the property or properties at which Subcontractor will perform the Work, and found the property(ies) in good order and condition and that there are no special conditions or defects of any kind which would prevent the proper and complete performance of the Work.

QUALITY CONTROL, COMMUNICATION & HAZARD REPORTING a. Subcontractor agrees to maintain an electronic mail address(e-mail) & internet service for the purpose of communicating with Buyer. b. Subcontractor agrees to provide a report of any hazard seen when servicing the site. c. Photos should be included where applicable. d. Email to Hazard@xyzcompany.com or use our Apple iPhone or iPad application

› financial risks from the policyholder. Simply put, if the policyholder is sued, and coverage is provided, the insurance company pays to defend the policyholder and their interests in addition to paying any settlements up to the policy limits purchased.

CONTRACTS: Risk transfer can also be accomplished through non-insurance agreements such as contracts. These contracts often include indemnification provisions. An indemnity clause is a contractual provision in which one party agrees to answer for any specified and unspecified liability or harm that the other party might incur.

These clauses can also include a hold harmless provision which to its definition means that you will hold others harmless for your acts.

Contractors most times are asked to indemnify the customer, property owners etc. against loss. The loss usually takes the form of a

Site Reporting & Property Inspection

These two clauses (Subcontractor's Inspection and Quality Control) are found, in some form or other, in most contracts with properties. These provisions tend to present a large exposure for all contractors as there aren’t any limitations to what the contractors actual responsibility is or isn’t. This is especially true in the event that an incident occurs as a result of any condition which may not be directly related to the actual scope of work for which the contractor is being hired to perform. Moreover, the contractor and their employees should not be in a position to determine what is an “Unsafe” and/or “Hazardous” condition. It is virtually impossible for the contractor to identify any and all impairments on a given property, especially if it is not being serviced 24 hours a day.

Suggested Change: Contractors should make every effort to change this contract language to mitigate site reporting and inspection exposure. Here's a good example of how that language can be fairly changed: "We will make every attempt to notify “customer” of any infrastructure impairments which might be identified during the time of service. However, (Contractor Name), its directors, officers, employees, technical personnel, advisors, consultants, agents and staff (collectively known as Representatives), shall not be held liable for any improper and incorrect use of this information and assume no responsibility for its use. In no event shall (contractor) or its Representatives be liable for any damages however caused in any way out of the use of this information, even if advised of the possibility of such damage. Neither (contractor) nor its Representatives warrant or make any representations regarding the use or the results of this information, or the accuracy, adequacy, completeness, legality, reliability or its usefulness." www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement • PAVEMENT • October/November 2017 23

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Contracts

› SUBCONTRACTOR’S LIABILITY TO BUYER: To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Subcontractor shall defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Buyer and its respective agents, officers, servants, employees, shareholders, successors, and assigns from and against any and all claims, demands, suits, proceedings, liabilities, judgments, awards, losses, damages, costs and expenses, including attorney fees, investigative fees and consulting fees, on account of bodily injury, sickness, disease or death sustained by any person or persons (other than Buyer), personal injury sustained by any person or persons (other than Buyer), and damage to or destruction of any property (including loss of use thereof) (other than property of Buyer) directly or indirectly arising out of or resulting from or in any way connected with or related to the work or failure to perform the work by Subcontractor or the work of any of its Subcontractor, whether or not due or claimed to be due in whole or in part to the active, passive or concurrent negligence or fault of a party indemnified hereunder or any other person or persons and whether or not the performance of the work or failure to perform work shall be in accordance with or in violation of the provisions of this Agreement and whether or not such claims, demands, suits or proceedings are just, unjust, groundless, false or fraudulent; and the Subcontractor shall and does hereby assume and agrees to pay for the defense of all such claims, demands, suits and proceedings.

lawsuit by a party that has been injured on the customer’s property.

When you agree to “defend and indemnify” the customer, you are essentially agreeing to pay for the legal defense of a lawsuit and to pay any settlement or judgement that the plaintiff in that action takes against your customer (property owner).

Indemnity is triggered when three things coincide: • The language of the indemnity agreement • Your conduct • The accident facts If the indemnity agreement mandates that you indemnify an owner for accident or injury “arising out of your work”, and the accident has no connection to your work, then your obligation to indemnify the owner is not triggered. However, under the same agreement, if an accident is connected to your work, then you are obligated to indemnify the owner.

The highlighted area of this contract clause appears in many standard contracts, though wording might be slightly different.

This clause is intended to protect the buyer – your customer – by transferring all risk to the contractor or subcontractor whether or not the subcontractor was directly involved in creating the risk.

Suggested Change: Remove the word “indirectly.” The contractor’s/subcontractor’s liability to the customer should be limited to only work performed directly.

Example of indemnity not triggered: You are contracted to only maintain Parking Lot B. Your indemnity agreement with the lot’s owner only requires you to indemnify the owner for claims arising from your work. You do not have anything to do with Parking Lot A. A customer slips on trash in Parking Lot A, falls and is injured. Your contractual indemnity to the owner is not triggered.

Example of indemnity triggered: You are contracted by a multi-level parking garage owner to inspect and maintain the entire garage under an indemnity agreement that mandates indemnification of all claims against the owner caused “in whole or in part” by your work. A person trips on a depression in the pavement of the parking deck and is injured. Indemnity is triggered.

INSURED CONTRACT – BASIS FOR COVERAGE: In almost all General Liability policies, you are covered for

claims from other parties who have a right to defense and indemnity, provided that party is relying on a contract that you have signed with them. This is often called the “insured contract” for which the other party gains access to the proceeds of your insurance policy. Ultimately there must be a contract which describes its right to a defense and indemnity from you.

ADDITIONAL INSURED STATUS: Often times your customers require to be named as "additional insured" on your Genera; Liability policy. This endorsement to your policy provides coverage to the additional insured entity with respects to liability arising out of your negligence for work performed under contract for the customer.

PRIMARY – NON-CONTRIBUTORY: This means that insurance is issued on the basis that it will not seek contribution from other insurance policies that apply to a covered loss on the same basis.

When issued on this basis, the "additional insured" (your customer), is seeking assurance that its own policy will not be asked to contribute to a covered loss.

So, with all the mechanisms in place for property owners, managers, third party providers to transfer risk to the

“The goal is to minimize risk by not assuming the liability exposures of others...”

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contractor, it’s crucial to understand what that means for your business and how it can impact your insurance.

A common theme regarding slip and fall claims from contractors: “I don’t know why my insurance company paid that claim when we had absolutely nothing to do with it. We don’t service that area of the property. We weren’t even there at that time. We didn’t see that obstruction or impairment so how could we report it.”

Steps To Protect Your Business • Review all contract language completely, especially the risk transfer language. Have your attorney and insurance advisor review as well.

• Clearly define the scope of work for which your company is being contracted to perform.

• Be very specific about time frames for services.

• Clearly define the boundaries of the property for where the work will be performed. Many properties have intersecting roadways, walkways etc that may not be within your scope.

You do not want to assume the responsibility of non related properties.

• Document pre- and post-service inspections.

Hopefully you have a better understanding of what the method of risk transfer means and how it can affect your business and ultimately your insurance. The goal is to minimize risk by not assuming the liability exposures of others and maximize risk by transferring it elsewhere. These methods are all accomplished by the proper understanding and wording of your customer contracts.

The content of this article is for information purposes only. Some or all of the information contained herein may

or may not apply to specific businesses or individual scenarios. Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction and Scott Cerosky do not warrant or make any representations regarding the use or the results of the use of the materials, or the accuracy, adequacy, completeness, legality, reliability, or usefulness of the enclosed material. Any and all contracts/ agreements should be reviewed by your individual legal counsel and insurance representatives for final opinion and/or approvals.

Scott Cerosky is Crum & Forster marketing consultant, Contractors Segment – Pavement Maintenance, Morristown, NJ. He can be reached at 914-714-0787 or Scott.Cerosky@cfins.com.

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Sweeping Steve Dunning

How to Get the Most from Your

MECHANICAL SWEE Proper and timely maintenance improves performance and extends sweeper life IDEALLY SUITED FOR sweeping construction debris and granular materials like millings or gravel, mechanical street sweepers are built to tackle some of the toughest road conditions. To keep a mechanical

sweeper performing productively over time and extend machine life, it’s important to follow simple maintenance tips on a regular basis.

Mechanical street sweepers are defined by the mechanical device on the sweeper that moves street debris from the brooms into the hopper. In the case of Elgin Sweeper’s mechanical sweepers, for example, debris is moved from the brooms to the hopper via a chain and squeegee elevator or a conveyor belt

and rollers. Regardless of the conveyor configuration, there are two key areas of maintenance on a mechanical sweeper: the conveyor system and the brooms. Since mechanical sweepers contain more moving parts requiring routine maintenance or replacement, the maintenance requirements for mechanical sweepers are different than those for regenerative air and pure vacuum sweepers.

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EEPER Conveyor System Prior to performing any adjustments on a mechanical sweeper’s conveyor system, all the safety stands must be installed and the manufacturer’s recommended safety practices should be carefully followed. Consult your sweeper’s operator and service manuals for location and proper use of safety equipment associated with your mechanical sweeper.

Current models with conveyors use a “modified chevron” design belt which

features V-shaped cleats, as opposed to flat cleats. The chevron cleat angles the outer 12 to 14 inches of the cleat to move debris to the center of the belt as it travels up the conveyor frame. Consequently, more debris is moved into the center of the hopper for a more even distribution of the dirt in the hopper. In addition to the modified chevron cleats, more pronounced ribbing between the cleats is used to capture finer dirt.

This raised ribbing prevents rollover of the large debris. The result is a cleaner sweep, with less spillage.

The rubber composition is heavier and thicker, with improved textile reinforcement to reduce stretching. This results in fewer adjustments and truer belt tracking once the belt is properly trained. The back side of the belt is textured or dimpled, which eliminates sticking once the conveyor system has been washed down at the end of the sweeping shift.

Belt training. Belt training is an important adjustment for belt longevity.

Allowing the belt to track to one side will cause gradual wear of the conveyor frame and can potentially cause the belt to rip or jam. Conveyor systems have adjusters, usually at the top, where tensioning of the belt and tracking adjustments are made.

Lower the conveyor to operating position and allow the belt to run for several minutes until it has warmed to operating temperature. Once the belt is warmed and pliable, adjust the belt to proper tension. If the belt sags too much, the cleats will contact the metal pan under the conveyor, which can damage the belt. In severe cases, this contact with the cleats can also damage the pan itself. The proper tension will allow the belt to travel without contacting components. If the belt is tensioned too tight, the bearings that support the rollers will experience

accelerated wear and early failure.

Once the correct tension has been established, the next adjustment is to the belt tracking. To get the belt to track in the center of the conveyor frame, it must be lowered into the operating position, with the sweeper pulled forward about 10 feet to allow such components as dirt deflectors and dirt shoes to assume their operating positions.

The belt must be observed as it

Lower roller washout and lower roller washout closeup. On a conveyor-equipped mechanical sweeper, the lower roller area of the conveyor system is the most important area to clean.

Located at the bottom of the conveyor, debris will tend to collect in the lower roller area. Flushing that area thoroughly will keep debris from building up between the lower roller and the scraper or belt.

travels. If the belt moves to the right or left, the appropriate tensioner should be tightened.

Elgin Sweeper’s top roller (drive roll), for example, uses two spiralwound bands designed to keep the belt centered and prevent slippage. Side-toside tension variation can cause the belt to track towards the side with the least amount of tension. When the belt starts moving in one direction, a tensioning bolt should be chosen and adjusted accordingly. If the belt is moving to the street side, the tensioning bolts on the street side need to be tightened one halfturn, while loosening the curb-side bolts the same amount. This keeps the tension at the proper adjustment.

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Sweeping The belt should be observed for movement. If the migration is slowed but continues to move to the street side, both sides should be adjusted another quarter-turn, and the belt movement observed again. If the movement is to the curb side, tighten the curb-side bolts while loosening the street-side bolts.

This adjustment procedure is somewhat of a trial-and-error process, but after some practice, most technicians can have it running true in short order.

If the belt appears to be stationary,

How the main and side brooms should be set.

to direct water either to the tank or the conveyor wash-down.

The lower roller area is the most important area to clean on a conveyor system. Located at the bottom of the conveyor, debris will tend to collect in the lower roller area. Flushing that area thoroughly will keep debris from building up between the lower roller and the scraper or belt, which will eventually cause damage.

Once the conveyor is clean, the conveyor should run for about five minutes to dry the belt and reduce the possibility of sticking to the conveyor frame.

Chain and Squeegee Elevator Assembly

applying a contrasting paint from a spray can to both sides will highlight the edge of the belt and roller. If the belt continues to move, the contrasting paint will reveal the movement more easily than watching the black belt and the end of the roller. If the belt will not train, a thorough inspection of the conveyor components must be performed. Worn bearings, broken rollers or seized components will have an adverse effect on belt training.

Cleaning the conveyor system.

Some mechanical sweepers are equipped with conveyor wash-down functions.

On the Pelican sweeper, for example, once the water tank is full, water will overflow onto the belt. Running the belt while overfilling the tank will clean the belt surface. Truck-mounted sweepers with the conveyor system have a valve The adjuster on an Elgin Pelican sweeper, also shows the edge of the sweeper’s conveyor belt.

The chain and squeegee design features rubber flights sandwiched between two strips of metal used to mount the assembly to the chains. As with the conveyor belts, the chains need to be observed and adjusted when the chain sag allows the strands to rub together, which can warrant an adjustment to prevent extreme wear.

Elgin Sweeper’s chain and squeegeetype elevator system uses two hydraulic grease cylinders to maintain and establish proper chain tension. A special grease zerk adapter is placed on the end of the grease cylinder. Using a hand grease gun, two pumps should be applied per side, alternating left and right to expand the cylinders. The chain strands will become more taught. The proper sag is 3-5/8 inches between the strands. Using a high-pressure shop grease gun is not recommended as it will result in overtensioning of the chains. Over-tensioning can cause rapid chain and bearing wear, as well as shaft failures.

When making chain adjustments, the sag should be decreased by tightening chains by no more than 1 inch at a time, alternating left and right until the

proper sag of 3-5/8 inches is achieved. As the chains stretch, it may be necessary to take a full link out of both chains and replace them with half links. With the installation of the half links, the adjustment procedure starts at a renewed distance. Once the half link has been added and the adjusting cylinders have once again reached the end of their travel, the chains will require replacement.

The second adjustment will be the introduction of the flight into the lower elevator pan. The flight must make contact with the lower radius of the pan as the flight meets the pan. The lower housing that supports the lower shaft has a radius cast into the housing that accomplishes this adjustment. The clearance of the flight should be adjusted 1/16 inch to allow the flight assembly to make gradual contact with the elevator pan as it comes over the lower roller shaft.

The third adjustment is for the flight at the upper elevator pan. The rubber flight has a clearance of 1/16 inch, allowing it to leave the pan without dropping off the edge. The upper shaft adjustment is made at the bearings mounted in the elevator housing. Once the attaching hardware is loosened, a long pry bar should be used to lift the upper shaft until the flight-tofloor clearance is correct.

When adjusted properly, the rubber flights will travel up the elevator pans in a vertical relation to the pan itself. If the rubber flight ascends at an angle, debris escapes and wear is accelerated on both components.

Another approach to a chain and squeegee elevator assembly requires slightly different adjustments. One example is Elgin’s Broom Bear in which the chain tension should be measured from the elevator pan to the top of the upper chain strand. The recommended tension

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is set at a measurement of 12 ¼ to 12 ½ inches. This measurement is established using two push bolts at the top shaft. The jam nut should be loosened and the push bolt screwed in until the proper measurement is attained. The jam nuts should be retightened to ensure the adjustment does not change during operation. The flight clearance at the lower elevator pan is set at 1/16 inch. Flight-to-floor clearance that is too tight will eventually damage the lower pan; set too loose, it will cause poor elevator performance, spilling debris under the flights. The upper flight clearance at the upper shaft should be set the same as the lower clearance.

Cleaning the elevator. As with the conveyor belts, chains and squeegees should be washed with the sweeper at the end of every shift. A wash-down function is available on truck-mounted sweepers with elevators, using a valve to direct water to either the tank or elevator wash-down. Debris can hold moisture, which can lead to rust. Debris wrapped around flights or shafts can also cause blockages and damage. Daily cleaning is an integral part of any sweeper’s care and longevity. A clean sweeper is easier to operate. And when service is performed daily, equipment failures are easier to identify and correct.

Broom Contact Patterns When set properly, broom contact patterns will increase broom life dramatically, ensuring a clean, superior sweep, without any debris left behind. The side broom area of contact will display a crescent pattern on the sweeping surface that will remove debris from the curb and bring it into the path of the pickup

The elevator on a four-wheel mechanical sweeper. The main broom has been removed for access.

The conveyor on a four-wheel mechanical sweeper.

The main broom has been removed for access.

or main broom. This is referred to as the three o’clock and ten o’clock positions on the curb side.

It’s essential that the side broom contact pattern shows debris will be released in front of the main broom, rather than outside the main broom. If the side broom is out too far, debris will be released outside the area the main broom sweeps, causing a debris trail.

Coning. The main broom contact pattern will exhibit a pattern that is 4 to 6 inches wide from the right side to the left side. Any variations from that would indicate a coning issue. For example, after a broom pattern was performed, if the right side measured 4 inches and the left side measured 6 inches, the main broom would be coning to the heavy, or left, side.

A coned broom cannot be recovered, so replacement is recommended. Observing the main broom’s wear closely after repairs will indicate whether the coning issue has been resolved.

Broom down pressure. Broom down pressure is a key component of contact patterns. Too much down pressure on the side brooms will extend the termination points of the crescents, flaying out the bristles and accelerating bristle wear. This is true for main brooms as well as side brooms. With the main broom, excessive down pressures will widen the contact pattern 8 to 10 inches in extreme cases.

Excessive down pressure effectively lays the bristle over, causing the bristle to mop debris into the pavement, wearing the bristle at an acute angle and shortening broom life. This acute angle can be identified easily. A uniform water mark higher than 1 ½ to 2 ½ inches (38.1 to 63.5 mm) up the side of the bristle

indicates too much down pressure. Correct main broom down pressures allow the tips of the bristle to “flick” debris up onto the elevator/conveyor. Bristle tip contact with the appropriate down pressure will extend broom life.

Maintenance for Leaf Pickup Make sure you remove or tie up the conveyor or elevator curtains or centerboard that may obstruct the flow of leaves. Check elevator or conveyor height to assure leaves will easily pass below those components on the way back to the main broom. Be sure to use water to help ensure easier pick up of leaves. Damp leaves will pick up easier and take up less room in the hopper. Adjust engine RPM or broom speed for best performance.

Generally, lower broom speeds will allow a smoother flow of leaves onto the conveyor or elevator. It’s important to return the curtains and conveyors to the factory setting once leaf season is over.

Conclusion As with any equipment, upkeep and maintenance comes down to the people who use and care for the machine. Educating operators and service technicians on proper operating and maintenance habits will make a world of difference when it comes to extending the life of a mechanical street sweeper.

Steve Dunning is technical training instructor for Elgin Sweeper, whose products are sold and serviced through a network of more than 100 dealer locations worldwide. Elgin Sweeper is a subsidiary of Federal Signal Corporation’s Environmental Solutions Group. For more information, visit www.elginsweeper.com.

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Paving

Allan Heydorn, Editor

How to Construct a Smooth Testing Tract Granite Construction West surpassed smoothness expectations in reconstruction of Honda Proving Center of California Throughout the job Granite and The Transtec Group monitored rolling patterns, made sure crews weren’t throwing rock onto the mat, checked that roller operators weren’t stopping rollers on the mat, and that operators rolled off the mat when they could instead of stopping on the mat.

material that was on site. We didn’t have to haul any away,” Niglio says.

The Biggest Challenge

WHEN GRANITE CONSTRUCTION West tackled the reconstruction of the Honda Proving Center of California (HPCC) testing facility near Cantil, the contractor knew they were in for a challenging job. Location, weather concerns and a heightened degree of smoothness created challenges for the Granite team.

But not only did the contractor complete the job and surpass the smoothness rating, the project was recognized by the National Asphalt Pavement Association with a 2017 Quality in Construction Award.

The HPCC testing track is a 7 ½-mile, four-lane oval with 2.3 miles of turns.

The original track, constructed by Granite Construction and opened in 1991, was essentially flat, with only a 1% slope (Figure 1). For the reconstruction

American Honda Motor Co. tasked Granite Construction with constructing a 5% “super elevation” on the outside lane (Lane 1). Lane 4, the inside lane, would have a 1-2% slope and lanes 1-3 would slope to 5%.

The HPCC is located in the Mojave Desert, which Paul Niglio, project engineer, says is not near much. “Because it’s in the middle of nowhere it’s difficult and expensive to haul things in and out so we wanted to minimize that,” he says.

Gary Wothers, Granite senior estimator, worked with Honda and helped develop a plan to “balance the dirt,” in other words to use the site’s existing material to reconstruct the track so that little debris had to be hauled away and little fill material had to be brought in.

“As it turned out we used all the

While distance encouraged Granite to plan the job to reduce haul costs, the biggest challenge was stabilizing the subgrade, which 5-6 feet beneath the track is clay “that you can mold pottery out of, it’s that malleable. The worst areas are literally like walking on a water bed,” Niglio says.

Instead of importing fill material, Honda decided to stabilize the clay by treating the subgrade with lime, which basically turned the clay into sandy silt.

But before they could stabilize the clay they had to break up the existing track and transform it into base material. They used pulverizers to break up the asphalt track about 6 inches deep (Figure 2), then mixed the pulverized material with the original subgrade about 16 inches deep to create base material (Figure 3).

Then, working on half the track at a time (Figure 4), Granite’s crews removed half the width of the track, flopping the excess and excavated material (“A”) onto the other half of the track. This gave the crew access to the subbase that required lime treatment (Figure 5). A subcontractor, PRS Construction & Restoration, Sacramento, CA, spread lime and mixed it 18 inches deep into the subgrade to stabilize it. Once the subbase was treated with lime, Granite reversed the

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STEP-BY-STEP RECONSTRUCTION

process (Figure 6), flopping the material it had stacked on half the track into the area it had just lime treated on the other half of the track (Figure 7), repeating the entire process (Figure 8) on the other half of the track. Once that half of the track was completed the excess material “A” stacked on half the track was moved into the hole and graded with blades and dozers. (Figure 9).

One of the requirements for Granite was to maintain the track’s existing elevation, which as Niglio explains can be difficult when adding a new layer of asphalt and incorporating existing pulverized material into the project.

“Adding a new layer of, say, 6 inches of asphalt would make us 6 inches higher than the existing pavement,” Niglio says.

“In addition, asphalt density is higher than aggregate base density, therefore when we break up asphalt and turn it into base, we are reducing the density.”

(In other words, the same material occupies a larger area.) “Finally, the volume of lime and water we added also increased the amount of material in the section. We took this excess material generated by the new section, creating base, and adding the additional volume of lime and water to create the 5% super.”

Granite Construction had planned to use a shuttle buggy in the paving process but soon realized the ground pressure was too high for a traditional shuttle buggy. So they opted for a lighter-weight material transfer vehicle and crews placed a windrow of mix down the center of each lane on the track and the MTV picked it up and kept the hopper filled.

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Paving

After letting the treated subgrade set, Granite crews graded it to create the new base, then proof-rolled that half of the track to determine if there were any soft spots (Figure 11).

“We found that even after the lime, parts of the grade were very sensitive to heavy equipment and needed additional support,” Niglio says. “I walked that entire track with a rubber tire roller to identify any soft spots, then we treated those spots with cement.”

Once both halves were pulverized, stabilized with lime and cement, and graded, the 5% supers were constructed around the turns and the track was ready for its first layer of hot mix asphalt.

An Unexpected Additional Lift The paved track was planned in two to three lifts totaling 5½ inches in Lane 1: base lift, intermediate lift and surface course.

Niglio says Granite introduced a thin leveling course into the project – not planned at the start – after the intermediate course. “Because after the grinding we were still not where we wanted to be and Granite decided a leveling course would solve the issue,” Niglio says. “We brought the idea to Honda and they signed off on it.”

So Granite Construction inserted a leveling course 12/100 thick (8/100 = 1 inch) on top of the intermediate lift, using the same mix that was used on the rest of the track.

Rudy Diaz, paving foreman of Granite Construction West, led the 9-person paving crew on the job.

"The Honda Test Track is not the first racetrack my crew has paved,” Diaz says.

“We have been successful on similar tracks for Hyundai and the Kern County Raceway, but this project was definitely a challenge due to the unstable native material. Consistent material in the paver, paver speed, auger speed, automatics, proper rolling patterns, and rolling off the mat whenever possible all helped us achieve our goal. " Prior to paving the cap, (Figure 12) Granite Construction paved multiple startup evaluation “test strips” in the track straightaway. There they tested what thickness they should use, what paving methods they should use, whether they should use a drag ski or air ski, how many lifts would work best to get the smoothness needed. “All just to see what worked best to get the result we needed,” Niglio says.

The night shift working in front of the paving operation. The blade is cutting the notch for the thicker asphalt section in lane 1, and a grade checker verifies thickness as they go.

Niglio says that almost from the start the paving was a struggle because of the specifications Honda wanted. But by the end Granite Construction not only met the specs but exceeded them to a substantial degree.

He says Granite Construction planned to use a shuttle buggy in the paving process to take some of the impact off the paver and to keep the material level in the hopper consistent. “But we realized the ground pressure was too high for a traditional shuttle buggy so went to Wirtgen and got a lighter material transfer vehicle (MTV),” he says.

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Paving

“One of the most critical aspects to ensuring high performance was the stringent field density requirement,” says Robert Rasmussen, vice president and chief engineer, The Transtec Group.

“The specification at the track surpassed what Caltrans requires in public highway construction.

Because the track will not be subject to heavy loads to increase density over time, initially lower in-place air voids are necessary to mitigate cracking and raveling, historically the most common distresses at the track.”

Crews placed a windrow of mix down the center of each lane on the track and the MTV picked it up and kept the hopper filled.

“While the MTV doesn’t mix material like a shuttle buggy does, it enabled us to keep the material level in the hopper consistent,” Niglio says. “It helps make sure the paver is consistently moving and increases the paving rate a little.

That was a ‘best practice’.”

Following “Best Practices” For testing purposes Honda wanted a very smooth track, measuring 60 on the Mean Roughness Index (MRI), a derivative of the International Roughness Index (IRI). Measured by pavement profiling devices, MRI is the average of the wheel path IRI values reported for a given pavement segment. (Caltrans, by comparison, requires 75 MRI on its roads.)

Niglio says that to meet the required specifications Granite Construction followed paving and compaction “best practices” throughout the job. The Transtec Group’s Robert Rasmussen, At the start of the paving shift Rudy Diaz, paving foreman (second from left), discusses rolling pattern with the breakdown roller operator.

Duane Picou, screed operator (center), monitors augers and frame height. Felix Diaz (right) asphalt raker, applies release agent to equipment.

The pulverized track was mixed with the subgrade, then dragged off half the track to the outside lanes so Granite could stabilize the subgrade on the inside lanes using lime and cement. Once stabilization was completed on the inside lanes the pulverized material was dragged from the outside lanes to the inside of the track and the stabilization process was completed on the outside lanes.

vice president and chief engineer, designed the mix for the track, and the company brought two paving specialists on site to monitor progress and aid in best practices.

“The mix as designed will help Honda ensure a longer-lasting track,” Rasmussen says. “For one thing, the binder is a polymer-modified PG 64-28M, which is superior in many aspects to the PG 70-10 that is commonly used in the region. Second, the mix is a ½-inch NMAS designed at 3% air voids. This has a net effect of increasing binder content to improve durability under the punishing environment the track faces.

Balancing the richer mix was an aggregate blend that exceeded both VMA and Stabilometer requirements.”

Throughout the job Granite and The Transtec Group monitored rolling patterns, made sure crews weren’t throwing

rock onto the mat, checked that roller operators weren’t stopping rollers on the mat, and that operators rolled off the mat when they could instead of stopping on the mat.

“We also documented each location each time the paver stopped and then evaluated each of those locations afterward to see if there was any problem with the mat at that location,” Niglio says.

Niglio says Granite attained the 60 MRI rating on the base lift, but after brief testing Honda decided they needed a smoother track.

“But once the base has been constructed like that our hands are tied a bit,” Niglio says. “It was a challenge figuring out how to reduce the IRI because after you have a grade and a thin lift of asphalt you’re kind of married to it. You don’t have much leeway.”

So Granite hired PRS Construction & Restoration to profile-grind the base using a micro-mill head on a 6-foot grinder with a 30-foot ski. Granite crews and PRS marked the high locations on the track and PRS used the micro-mill to cut 5/100 off the top of the asphalt base.

“We actually spent a month out there remarking and regrinding specific locations to attain the Honda specs,” he says.

“We probably went around every lane five or six times and each time we did it there were fewer grinds.”

By the time they were ready to construct the cap, the pavement smoothness was right where it needed to be.

“We had zero grinds on the actual cap,” Niglio says. “The cap was the culmination and by that point the paver rode perfectly.”

Granite Construction West was able to bring the MRI value down to 28, well below the initial target.

42 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Contractors ’ Choice: Surface Preparation

How to Properly Pair Cold Planers and Carriers To help your cold planer perform its task most efficiently, match the cold planer attachment to the host and application COLD PLANER ATTACHMENTS can work shallowly, providing just what’s needed to remove paint lines, and they can also mill deeply to cut through concrete or one or more layers of asphalt.

But in order to efficiently and productively perform these and other jobs, it’s important to match the attachment to both the carrier and the tasks.

“Peak performance starts with proper matching of the attachment and the host machine’s provided power to the application,” says Adam Runner, special projects manager, Coneqtec-Universal.

“A small, low-flow planer used for parking lot patch repair will probably be disappointing if used for deep milling or concrete work.”

Pay Attention to Hydraulics Improper pairing of the attachment to the capabilities of the carrier is one of the most common mistakes contractors make, says Larry Giberson, owner, GECON Attachments.

“An under-powered skid steer, both in terms of pushing power and hydraulic power – meaning adequate pressures and flows – won’t perform to expectations,” he notes. “If the attachment can’t get its required ‘juice’ then it will only be partially productive. While nothing bad can really happen to the carrier, the wheels [of a skid steer] may spin or break traction, and the performance of the attachment will be less than can be achieved. Wheel wear costs can also go up if the machine is undersized.”

One of the first steps is to match the hydraulic needs of the attachment with those provided by the host machine.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding hydraulics, especially auxiliary power.

“It is important to know what

hydraulic horsepower (hhp) is available for each [carrier] that will be running attachments,” Runner says. “It is not the host machine’s engine power but rather the hydraulic horsepower that is available. The host machine will need to deliver enough power to the attachment for it to operate productively. Minimal requirements may not cut it if the application is more demanding, such as milling 2 inches deep vs. 6 inches deep.”

Mike McSorley, field product support and training, Paladin Attachments, agrees, adding, “It’s important to understand the hydraulic performance

of the machine. When you read the specifications, manufacturers are talking about gross hydraulic performance.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you will yield 100% of those hydraulics through the attachment coupling system that attaches it to the machine. A lot of people have the presumption that all of the hydraulic flow is going to the attachment when it isn’t. There are other demands on the hydraulics, such as what is needed for an undercarriage.”

When acquiring a new machine, McSorley suggests checking with the dealership to confirm its actual

44 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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hydraulic performance. You can confirm hydraulic flow and pressure via field service trucks, as well.

Runner also stresses that the hydraulic horsepower of a system must be calculated, rather than following what is stated as the amount of flow. He offers the following calculation to determine hydraulic horsepower: multiply the system’s flow by its pressure, then divide by 1,714 (gpm x psi/1,714). “To be more accurate, knock off another 10% for inefficiencies, such as heat loss,” he says. “A hydraulic system with a lower flow rate at higher pressure can have more horsepower than a higher flowing system with lower pressure.”

To estimate the planer’s hydraulic horsepower requirement, multiply the drum width by 2. “That means, for example, a 24-inch-wide planer would require a host system with at least 48 hhp to run efficiently,” Runner says. “If a contractor anticipates deep milling or concrete work, he might want to multiply the drum width by 2.5 or 3 to find the minimum hhp required for the application.”

When selecting a loader to be used with a cold planer, Katie Althoff, attachments product specialist, Bobcat, suggests it is best to stay at the high end of the machine’s flow range. “If you are on the low end of the range, you will have less performance,” she says. “It will feel like the attachment is underperforming and not getting enough flow.

There is a lot of resistance as you cut through the material. To get the best performance, you want to get as much flow going through the attachment as possible. A high-flow loader will also help improve performance.”

Runner advises paying attention to high-flow vs. low-flow requirements.

“There will be problems if a highflow attachment is mounted on a host with low-flow hydraulics,” he says.

“There are also various hydraulic line configurations (three-line, five-line, etc.) on host machines that will need to be matched or accommodated.”

Bigger Isn’t Always Better Another common misstep is selecting the wrong size of attachment. While cold planers can make cuts as wide as 40

inches, wider isn’t always better.

“There is a misconception that a wider cut will give more productivity,” says McSorley. “But in fact, it slows down forward progress.”

Cold planer attachments can weigh up to 2,500 lbs. “Combined with the weight of the host machine, you are trying to push a lot through a road bed,” McSorley says. “Oftentimes, contractors are better off making multiple passes with an 18- or 24-inch attachment rather than trying to do it all at once with a wider one. Multiple passes is a more efficient use of the hydraulic system, and it extends the service life of cutting teeth on the drum.”

Likewise, cutting too deep all at once can be a mistake. “The most efficient use of carbide tools [for asphalt] is to cut somewhere between 1.5 to 2 inches in depth,” says McSorley. “That will keep the tool in the asphalt just long enough so it can rotate and have a chance to cool down a bit.”

1

2

Consider Host Specifications Host machines for planers are typically skid steers, compact track loaders or excavators, but may also include backhoe-loaders and wheel loaders.

McSorley advises using a skid-steer loader over a compact track loader. “A compact track loader is designed with an undercarriage and tracks to diminish ground pressure and improve flotation. As you work on concrete or asphalt, it wears the rubber tracks quickly,” he says.

Operating system preferences also can come into play when choosing a host machine. A joystick can make a planer attachment easier to operate. “You aren’t ‘feathering’ much so you don’t need to keep touching a handle,” Althoff says.

“With a joystick, you can ‘dial’ it in by selecting how fast you want to travel, which is generally slow, which will keep the torque high. You can drive without having to worry about adjusting speed.”

Maintaining a constant speed is less taxing on the operator, as well. “It is one less thing they have to focus on,” says Althoff. “Operators don’t have to rock back and forth to maintain speed.

This offers a nice, constant biting away at the asphalt for a cleaner cut,

3 1. Peak cold planer performance begins by properly matching the carrier's capabilities and the attachment's power requirements.

2. A misconception is that a wider cut will provide more productivity. However, in most cases, multiple passes with a narrower attachment is actually more efficient.

3. When selecting a loader to be used with a cold planer, it’s best to stay at the high end of the machine’s hydraulic flow range to ensure optimal attachment performance.

better performance and less feedback to the operator. You will get better fuel efficiency for the loader, as well.”

According to McSorley, Bradco’s joystick controller can make operation easier. “Setting up the three or four functions (depending on which style planer is purchased) is more easily controlled by using our joystick controller because the left side operates independent of the right side,” he says. “And if your machine goes down, you can

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Contractors ’ Choice: Surface Preparation immediately pick up the cold planer and move it to any other high-flow machine and go right back to work.”

GECON Attachments offers a “performer” enhancement feature to show an operator an easily visible measure of the most efficient way to do a job, eliminating the guesswork and any too slow or too fast operation. The company also offers a universal wiring harness. “That means anyone with a high-flow skid steer can run our planer with a conveyor,” says Giberson. “If a contractor has more of a particular brand of skid steer in the fleet, this would allow for changing the carrier and putting the planer on a different skid steer without having to plug in a different wiring harness.”

Choose the Right Drum At the heart of the cold planer attachment is the drum, with varying options offered by manufacturers.

“Contractors need to understand there is a significant difference in drum design and configuration for concrete vs. asphalt,” Giberson says. “The best advice we can give is that there needs to be a mind-set that there are two totally different applications in the field.

“Most planers are set up to attack asphalt,” he says. “But just changing the pics, or teeth, is not the best answer because drum construction, placement of pic holders, pic composition and total number of teeth are different for milling concrete vs. asphalt.

“Milling concrete with an asphalt setup will lead to less production and considerably more wear cost,” Giberson says. “The smart thing to do is invest in an extra/spare drum and teeth for concrete if you know you will be doing jobs with concrete.”

Bobcat offers different drum types on its planers. “Fast-cut” drums have fewer bits to mill asphalt quickly with a relatively fine end product and scarified surface for patching or layering asphalt.

The drum can mill more deeply (3 to 4 inches), depending on hydraulic flow and how much oil is in the asphalt. “Surface” or “smooth-cut” drums are typically used on concrete where a shallower cut is needed, such as when removing paint.

5 Setup/Operating tips Tip #1: Inspect the grinding bits. The bits chew through the concrete or asphalt so it’s important to prevent uneven wear and keep them free of debris.

Bobcat’s Katie Althoff suggests checking bits every four to eight hours of operation to ensure they are freely spinning. “You can go through a pair of bits pretty quickly if you aren’t paying attention,” she comments.

“These tools have to stay free-moving during operation, otherwise they will flatten on one side,” Mike McSorley, Paladin Attachments, says. “A stuck bit can also overheat the hydraulic system and drive up fuel consumption.”

“When cutting bits become stuck and do not rotate, they become unequally worn on one side, which decreases their performance and wear life,” says Adam Runner, Coneqtec-Universal. “Continuing to operate a planer whose cutting bits are too worn will usually result in damage to the bit holders. This can be rather expensive when you take into account that replacement bit holders have to be welded to the drum and the planer is out of production while repairs are made.”

To minimize downtime, some contractors purchase extra bits that can be quickly swapped out with those that need cleaning or replacement.

Tip #2: Operate the host machine at full rpm. “This gives you the necessary torque and power you need,” Althoff says.

Tip #3: Conduct proper maintenance. Runner advises greasing all pivot points and immediately making adjustments and repairs when needed. “Like any piece of machinery, staying on top of key maintenance activities will help performance and extend the life of the machine,” he says.

“Take extra minutes a few times a day to make sure all the teeth, or pics, are turning in the holder,” adds Larry Giberson, GECON Attachments. “Also conduct proper grease cycles and maintenance. Preventive maintenance on planers is smart business.”

Tip #4: Be prepared for the unexpected. Material can be deeper or shallower than expected. Asphalt can also have more or less oil than expected, thereby affecting the speed of the milling job. “A lot of times, a contractor may go out on a job and think they only have 3 inches of asphalt when they actually have 5 in.,” says Althoff. “A job is often a matter of trial and error so be prepared for the unexpected and don’t force the planer.”

Tip #5: Consider a “tip crew”: Bits aren’t necessarily plug and play, says McSorley.

“It’s so important to manage the tools, and it is a complex job,” he says. “Some contractors have a ‘tip crew’ whose only job is to manage the carbide tools.”

Coneqtec-Universal offers an open drum design that features staggered, offset plates with the grinding bits attached to the perimeter of the plates rather than a barrel. “The open drum has proven to be much more productive and efficient due to the elimination of regrinding the aggregate,” Runner says. “With closed drums, much of the spoil is thrown back over the drum and ground repeatedly into a fine dust. Open drums have the advantage of the spoil falling between the plates and left in the planing path without regrinding.”

Paladin provides one drum type for its Bradco planers and another for its FFC planers. “The FFC model cuts deep because of the pattern on the drum and the placement and shape of the carbide cutting tools,” McSorley says. “It’s

designed to cut deep in a single pass.

The Bradco unit is typically favored by contractors who are interested in weight, torque, rear spoils clearance and quality of the scarification pattern. It gives more bondable surface, offering a place for more adhesion to occur.”

The 40-in. GECON PL-C planer has drums that can be split in half in three configurations: 20 inches + 20 inches, 16 inches + 24 inches or 24 inches + 16 inches. “This feature allows for removal of one of the sections that is a type of clamp-on half shell and leaves the smaller (milling) area for more flexible milling,” Giberson says. “The segmented planer will act just as a basic planer with no trench cleaning unless the full drum is in place.”

46 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Pavement Maintenance

Allan Heydorn, Editor

21 Late-season Pavement Maintenance Tips

Follow these guidelines to make sure your late-season jobs are successful – and profitable To improve late-season patching and even extend the season many contractors have added a hot box reclaimer to their fleet to assure hot asphalt is available all year. Contractors need to stockpile asphalt while plants are in operation to make sure it's available for reheating once plants shut down.

BY THIS TIME of the year contractors have “made their nut” and whatever work they complete from now is often “pure profit.” But late-season work is only profitable if it’s successful. Here are some tips to help make sure your lateseason jobs retain that pure profit.

Sealcoating 1. There are fewer daylight hours and temperatures are cooler so factor that into your bid and production process. For sealer to be applied successfully and last as long as it should the temperature needs to be 50˚F and rising at the time of application.

2. Check the overnight temperatures, too, because if the overnight temperature drops below about 40˚F there’s little chance the pavement will warm up enough to sealcoat the next day.

3. As a result of cooler temperatures you’ll likely be starting your day later – and with the sun setting earlier your working day will be shorter.

4. Consider completing sealcoating by 1:00-2:00 p.m. to give the sealer several hours of sunlight to dry.

5. That means your crews will probably produce less square footage in a day, which probably means applying coats on separate days on two-coat jobs.

6. When a job does call for two coats, you might have to extend the drying time by as much as 4-6 hours.

7. A second work day means an additional mobilization, so factor that into your bid.

8. Use less water (about 5% less) in the mix design to aid drying.

9. Consider additives designed to speed drying and curing. Follow manufacturer’s recommendations closely.

10. Consider additional barricades if the job extends over two days.

11. Make sure the pavement is completely dry and that no water remains in the pavement prior to sealing.

12. Don’t sealcoat if the temperature is expected to drop below freezing at night. This will cause sealer failure.

13. If you’re concerned about the job quality and success, ask your customer to move the job to the spring.

14. If all else fails and your client insists on you sealcoating their parking lot, have him sign a waiver. Anytime you’re doing work that conflicts with sealer producer’s specifications you need to protect yourself.

Cracksealing Fall (and spring) are considered the best times to repair cracks as cracks aren’t as closed as they are in summer nor as open as they can be in the winter. Here are some tips for cooler weather: 15. Seal cracks that are 1/8-inch wide or wider.

16. Monitor the temperature of material in the kettle. As the weather cools it’s likely the kettle will require more heat for the material to reach and maintain the appropriate temperature for application.

17. Make sure cracks are completely clean and dry. Use wire brushes, an air compressor, a vacuum or a hot

air lance before placing material.

This also applies to cracks prepared one day and left overnight before they are filled. Any moisture remaining can cause premature failure; dry them again before sealing.

Paving Late-season temperatures play the biggest role in determining whether you can pave; these guidelines should help: 18. Ground temperature is as important – or more important – as air temperature. If the air is warming but the ground is still cold, it will suck the heat out of the hot mix asphalt you place, making it difficult to achieve density during compaction.

19. Wind plays a role. Cooler air temperatures are even cooler when a breeze kicks up. Any wind that cools the asphalt mat reduces the time available for compaction.

20. Thicker lifts retain heat longer in cold weather than do thin lifts. The thinner the lift the less time crews have for compaction.

21. Distance from the plant to the job is crucial. Hot mix cools in transport to the jobsite, so tarps and other methods that protect asphalt should be used. Even so, factor in this distance when accepting a job late in the season.

Regardless of the type of work you’re doing, it’s essential to follow all material producer’s recommendations including heating temperatures, temperature requirements, moisture conditions and application guidelines. If you are concerned you are “pushing the limits” contact the manufacturer or your supplier.

But don’t always try to get that “one more job” in. Odds are that the farther you push the more likely it is that job will fail and you’ll end up redoing it in the spring – for nothing.

48 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Classifieds

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Call us for any Used Striping Equipment needs:

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$225,000

2004 GMC TMT Airless Paint Truck

Low Mileage, Great Condition, Dual Steering, All Controls in the Cab, Set up for One Person Operation, Ready to Stripe, Great for striping behind pavers, One Available.

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with New Wanco 4X8 Arrow Board.

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1996 Isuzu TMT-127P Airless Paint Truck with Dual Steering

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2002 GMC Arrow Box Grinder Truck

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$92,500

2003 Sterling Condor MB Airless Paint Truck

2002 GMC MRL Pressure Pot Thermo Striper

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2006 Autocar M-B Thermo Striper Truck Excellent Condition. Just Serviced. Only 28,000 miles and 627 hours.

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We buy used equipment and will take trade-ins.

Please call for used parts for most striping equipment and save!

52 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Classifieds

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Classifieds

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Two (2) CM utility single wheel bed with headache rack *Both new and fit a Chevrolet or Dodge long bed w/ single rear wheel only

54 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Classifieds

Mechanical Chassis Mounted Sweeper (ES351) A proven single engine design that blends a superior collection of features which provides ownership advantages such as the tightest turning radius in the industry and a stainless steel hopper with a lifetime warranty.

Pure Vacuum (VT651/801) The street sweeper the industry benchmarks sweeper performance by that integrates exceptional versatility with unmatched features that include a high performance fuel efficient fan drive system (5 year warranty and no belts), CANbus technology to ensure maximum performance and exclusive “one pass” sweeping.

Regenerative Air Sweeper (RT 655) A highly regarded heavy duty full size (8.5 yd3 stainless steel hopper) regenerative air sweeper that delivers an optimum sweep performance along with superior fuel efficient fan drive system (5 year warranty and no belts) to achieve the lowest cost of ownership in its class.

Compact Sweeper (C201) An innovative and highly maneuverable compact sweeper for tight confined spaces that include unparalleled features such as advanced CANbus technology to deliver remarkable sweep performance along with lowest cost of ownership in its class.

We are THE ONLY sweeper manufacturer to offer an all-inclusive warranty (2 years/2,000 hours) and an “entire debris hopper” constructed of stainless steel as a standard with a LIFETIME WARRANTY.

Endless Sweeping Solutions 105 Motorsports Road, Mooresville, NC 28115 t 704.658.1333 f 704.658.1377 e info@johnstonnorthamerica.com

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Call Toll Free 1-888-843-1805 56 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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Classifieds

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On The Job

Randy Strait

5 Ways to Improve Snow Removal Efficiency Tips to help you clear properties in as few passes as possible BALANCING LIABILITY EXPOSURE and productivity may seem like a tightrope to walk, but if snow removal contractors incorporate these strategies and look for the right pusher features, they will be successful.

1. Size It Right and Calculate Pushing Time Pick a pusher with the proper size and weight for the skid steer or loader as well as for the parking lot size. Bigger pushers aren’t always better. A skid steer with a 10-foot pusher ideally clears narrow parking aisles and handicapped parking spaces with traffic present. A 19-foot loader-mounted pusher works more efficiently on large lots with wider clearing areas.

Many contractors with containment plows use a formula

based on acres and pushing capacity to determine productivity ahead of time. This creates a strategy for operator schedules and helps determine priority for clearing parking lots by size.

For example, a 10-foot containment plow with a pushing capacity of 13 yards will take roughly 30 minutes to clear two to three acres of 3 inches of snow. A 16-foot model with a 28-yard capacity could clear the same job in half the time.

This formula changes depending on snow conditions and characteristics, but it gives a rough time frame with which to work and helps determine the amount of equipment needed.

2. Cut Salt A pusher with features that remove ice cuts out the need to spend time applying salt. A sectional snow pusher with a steel cutting edge effectively scrapes even hard-packed snow and ice down to the pavement on the first pass. Plus, the individual sections of the pusher get into dips and depressions in the pavement, leaving cleaner results than traditional designs.

This saves time, cuts outsourcing costs (such as hiring pick-up plow operators) and reduces the amount of salt needed.

3. Move Easily A drop-and-go slip-style hitch lets the pusher move freely from the equipment and automatically adjust to any change in pavement. So the operator doesn’t have to manually correct the pusher each time it drops, which is time-consuming, challenging, frustrating and, if done incorrectly, results in costly repairs.

A hitch that lets the pusher lie properly each and every time extends the pusher’s life, guarantees a clean surface, keeps the carrier equipment moving, and conserves salt and fuel.

4. Get Easy Maintenance Quick and easy serviceability in the field minimizes downtime and increases efficiency. An operator who has parts available in the field cuts repair time to 10 to 15 minutes, enabling him to get back to work rather than waiting for a shop mechanic.

5. Reduce operator fatigue An efficient pusher helps operators avoid long hours and fatigue that lead to costly mistakes and carelessness. This affects a contractor’s safety and could damage the customer’s property or lead to an accident.

ForConstructionPros.com/12280270

During 40 years in the snow removal business, Randy Strait, owner and president of Arctic Snow & Ice Control Inc. and Arctic Snow & Ice Products, has tackled everything from his own driveway to parking lots at some of the nation’s largest businesses. He believes the key to quality work and reduced liability is to be prepared for each and every snow removal job — no matter the size.

58 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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John Tschohl

Your Business Matters

Standing Still Can Kill Your Business Ongoing training is an important part of staying competitive and keeping your workers fulfilled in their careers I FIND THIS statistic unbelievable….

The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics found that companies with fewer than 100 employees gave only 12 minutes of manager training every six months.

Organizations with 100-500 employees provided just 6 minutes.

The following statistic is even more proof that ongoing training is essential for employee development and the growth of a company: A long-term research project commissioned by Middlesex University for Work Based

Learning found that of 4,300 workers, 74% felt that they weren’t achieving their full potential at work due to lack of development opportunities.

The lesson here: invest in retaining and developing your present employees.

After all, the cost of retaining present employees is much less than the cost of replacing them. Help employees expand their knowledge by offering more training options. Offer them the opportunity to move up in the company to a better position and a better salary.

Why Invest in Training?

Throughout my 37 years of preaching customer service, I have found many organizations ignore continuous employee training as they feel it’s expensive and employees miss out on work time while being trained. What they fail to understand are the benefits of these continuous training sessions and how they contribute to the organization overall. Benefits of conducting these programs are far greater and longer-lasting. Let’s take a look.

• Continuous training takes care of

ForConstructionPros.com/10075040

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Your Business Matters weak links. It helps to reduce weak links and ensure the same mistakes are not repeated.

• Continuous training increases employee satisfaction. It shows employees that they are valued. It helps them move up the learning curve and work harder. They will know that the training they do can take them into other positions with better growth opportunities and/or better pay.

• Continuous training boosts employee performance. It empowers employees, gives them confidence and keeps them up to date on new developments. This confidence pushes them to perform better and think of new ideas to excel.

• Continuous training should be done on your time. Because employees are being trained on your time, they see that you value them enough to invest in them.

• Continuous training helps you stay ahead of the competition. Make sure your staff is constantly advancing and

you will keep moving forward and be more competitive in the marketplace.

Standing still can kill your business.

I always recommend that organizations produce a training and development plan for all employees. The aim is to empower all employees to carry out their roles to the highest standards, and deliver high-quality services every time.

Spending money on something that pays off in profit should not be a sticking point for a business!

John Tschohl is an international service strategist and speaker and founder and president of the Service Quality Institute in Minneapolis, MN. He will release shortly the 11th edition of Achieving Excellence Through Customer Service. The Service Quality Institute www.customerservice.com developed more than 26 training programs that have been distributed and presented throughout the world. John’s monthly strategic newsletter is available online at no charge.

Improve Office “Best Practices” at NPE 2018 Your office team is the “hub through which all your business flows” so Linda Alfonsi, operations manager at Petra Paving, will help contractors “avoid the office chaos that can result in frustrated customers, low employee morale and eventually decreased profits” in her new session, How to Organize and Manage Your Office for Efficiency & Profit. Alfonsi will discuss how best to manage the day-to-day demands of the pavement maintenance industry, how to create decision-making processes unique to the industry, how (and why) to match key employees to appropriate roles, how to set up standard operating procedures and responsibilities, and how to improve communication between your office and your crews.

For complete session description and to register for NPE 2018, Feb. 7-10 in Cleveland, visit www. nationalpavementexpo.com.

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60 October/November 2017 • PAVEMENT • www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement

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NAPSA

Connecting the Dots In this edition of Pavement Maintenance & Reconstruction, you may have read the article entitled “NAPSA Developing ANSI Standard.”

Readers learned that the power sweeping industry has been plagued with litigation that is causing insurance rates to soar through the roof. Additionally, the cost to retain an attorney to defend your organization can truly put a dent in your pocket.

The North American Power Sweeping Association listened and that is why we began working on the standard.

“Do for your industry, what they cannot do for themselves” is a mantra that Scott Cerosky, member of the NAPSA Standards team continues to remind.

Doing what the power sweeping community cannot do individually is exactly why NAPSA began this process. We represent those interests. NAPSA is comprised of volunteer leaders, members and a director. It is through the concept of “many hands make light work” that this organization propels the best interest of our community forward.

Once NAPSA completes the standard, the leadership will enhance the topic with education. The community will have access to management level training as well as our new Certified Sweeper Operator program. Both programs will

work in concert to create the baseline of best practices. The Certified Sweeper Operator program will begin beta testing in the fourth quarter of 2017 and is anticipated to launch in conjunction with National Pavement Expo.

Be a part of the power sweeping community. Although these programs will be made available to everyone, the resources for development come from NAPSA members. If you would like to participate in the betterment of your power sweeping industry, contact the NAPSA office at (888) 757-0130 or visit www.powersweeping.org today!

The North American Power Sweeping Association (NAPSA) is a nonprofit association made up of 200+ contract sweepers, service providers and sweeping equipment dealers, manufacturers and suppliers. NAPSA is dedicated to providing beneficial support to the membership and enhancing services to the sweeping industry. NAPSA is committed to promoting and educating the power sweeping community while enhancing the environment. For more information on NAPSA membership, please visit www.powersweeping.org or call (888) 757-0130.

WSA

21st Century Marketing: Rely on Social Media

by Ranger Kidwell-Ross

Have you noticed how the world appears to be speeding up? Largely due to the Internet, successful businesses simply can’t be conducted as they were even five years ago.

As far as I know, I purchased the first domain related to the sweeping industry in the early ‘90s as a consultant for the Schwarze family. Schwarze.com was also the first website built for the industry; at the time, there were fewer than 100,000 websites in the entire world. A huge advance at the time, today a website is only a bare necessity needed for marketplace visibility.

My seminar presentation for our recent World Sweeping Association Sweeper Roundup 2017 was entitled “Marketing in the 21st Century.” While researching and preparing for it I was struck by just how many marketing avenues are now available for contractors. The problem is that many of them are evolving at the warp speed of the Internet and many, if not most, are somewhat complex to implement and, equally important, monitor the results without specialized help.

Today, with smartphones and access to the Web almost universal, it’s become relatively easy to advance your business on a variety of social media platforms. What you do in this regard is enormously important to how you rank with Google the behemoth of search. However, you have to allocate the resources and be savvy enough to set up systems

that ensure frequent postings are made on at least Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, your blog — and, soon, somewhere else being invented today. Yet, many contractors have yet to even claim their Google Places account, which all businesses have whether they are aware of it or not.

If you don’t have the resources and person-power to take these steps on your own, locate reputable pros that can handle it for you. Like WSA does, one of your associations may be able to provide referrals in this regard. It will cost about what your Yellow Pages ads used to run but offer much more widespread visibility. As a Pavement reader, if you’d like a copy of my Sweeper Roundup presentation, send an email request to director@ worldsweepingpros.org. WSA exists to advance professionalism in the power sweeping industry, but contractors in any pavementrelated industry will find the contents to be helpful.

WSA contributor Ranger Kidwell-Ross has been providing information to the power sweeping industry since 1988. He is editor of WorldSweeper.com, an information resource for power sweeping, as well as founder and executive director of the World Sweeping Association. For more information about WSA visit www.WorldSweepingPros.org or contact Kidwell-Ross at director@ worldsweepingpros.org.

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PCTC

RTS in the Real World: Ecotoxicity “The weight of evidence is not sufficient to conclude that refined coal tar sealants [RTS] are causing adverse effects to aquatic organisms in the environment.” That was the conclusion reached by Dr. Susan Kane Driscoll, a well-known aquatic toxicologist who has reviewed the published science. Dr. Kane Driscoll is a specialist in the bioavailability and toxicity of contaminants sediments to aquatic organisms, with a focus on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). She has coauthored scientific articles with US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists about the equilibrium partitioning method, and has been a technical reviewer of multiple EPA guidance documents related to determining the toxicity of PAH mixtures in the aquatic environment.

In her evaluation, Dr. Kane Driscoll emphasized the importance of distinguishing between adverse effects observed in laboratory tests and those observed in the real world environment. The concern with relying solely on laboratory data is that the complexity of the real world is difficult to reproduce in laboratory observations. In the case of the science of RTS, examples of the limitations of laboratory studies include weak associations between observed effects and PAH concentrations, use of solvent extracts of sealants rather than processes present in the real environment, and the small reported size of potentially reversible effects.

Dr. Driscoll also observed that both PCTC-funded evaluations and government-funded studies have found that RTS is not a significant source of PAHs in sediments in the US.

There is a large body of evidence which demonstrates that the toxicity of PAHs in the aquatic environment varies greatly depending on the type of PAHcontaining material involved. This variability in toxicity is related to differences in bioavailability.

Bioavailability is a measure of how much of the substance being tested actually reaches the body’s circulation systems such as the blood stream rather than being filtered by the body’s natural protection mechanisms. For example, inhaling sawdust particles through the nose will not mean that the substances in the sawdust actually reach the bloodstream and have a potential toxic effect.

Bioavailability of PAHs that come from combustion-related particles (for example, coal tar, coke, soot) is generally lower than for other sources of PAHs (for example, oil, gasoline). Bioavailability of PAHs in coal tar pitch particles in sediments has been shown to be among the lowest measured, and considerably lower than for other sources.

And since the concern is with the potential toxic effects of PAHs, the PAHs must be bioavailable to have any measurable toxic effect.

In other words, the difficulty PCTC has experienced finding any examples of aquatic toxicity associated with RTS in the real environment should not be a surprise because of the low bioavailability of PAHs in the refined tar base used to manufacture RTS.

For more about PCTC visit www.pavementcouncil.org.

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By Larry Stewart

Technology

Digital Lag Is Contractor’s Easiest Competitive Advantage Only about half of contractors use the digital tools that offer the easiest way to improve construction efficiency “JUST AS THE introduction of electricity shifted the world’s industrialized economies into higher gear a century ago, digital technologies are fueling economic activity today. This time, however, the transformation is unfolding exponentially faster.” Digital America: A Tale of the Haves and Have Mores, McKinsey & Company Research from the McKinsey Global Institute measuring the degree of digitization in sectors across the U.S. economy found the construction industry near the bottom of the list, and a large and growing gap between sectors. The opportunity to gain competitive advantage by implementing digital technology in a construction company may never be better, with off-the-shelf technologies abundant and few competitors using them.

“The most digital companies see outsized growth in productivity and profit margins,” the report notes. Researchers defined the scale of digitization based on 27 indicators that fall into the three categories: digital assets, digital usage and digital workers.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, McKinsey says, “Digital usage in the form of transactions, customer and supplier interactions, and internal business processes, grew almost fivefold [over 15 years].”

Leading companies make greater use of digital payments, digital marketing and design-led product development. They are more likely to manage their operations and customer relationships using software and take advantage of e-commerce platforms.

Recent research by Equipment Today found that only 36% of construction contractors are willing to make purchases worth more than $500 online, suggesting the breadth of construction’s resistance to even participating in digital business. And 76% of those who will not conduct a $500 purchase online will either hold course on online purchasing or reduce its frequency.

More telling, 30% to 60% of all construction contractors responding to the 2016 Construction Technology Report by JBKnowledge employ manual processes or spreadsheets to manage takeoff, estimating, subcontractor pre-qualification, invitation to bid, project management and collecting data. Fewer than half those responding to the technology provider’s survey use mobile apps for daily reporting, worker time entry, managing safety and tracking job performance.

JBKnowledge’s summary of the annual study suggests, “Roughly half of the companies surveyed either do not know where to start in tying each of their mobile data collection processes together, automating them and going mobile, or they’re not willing to spend additional money to do so. The amount of manual and spreadsheet data collected from a mobile device on a jobsite is surprising. Builders are completely missing the daily analytics that could reduce jobsite error, waste and inefficiencies.”

But software solutions are available for all key construction management functions, and most have some record of improving company efficiency and performance.

Gruenberg to Tackle Integrating Management Technologies at NPE 2018 A known “first adopter” of management technologies, Guy Gruenberg, Grow Consulting, will teach contractors how those technologies can work together at a special seminar at National Pavement Expo, Feb. 7-10 in Cleveland. The new session, “How to Use Technologies to Manage Your Contracting Business,” was developed by Gruenberg specifically for NPE. It will be presented from 2:00-3:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 9.

The session description notes that just as improved equipment technology aids work in the field, technology can ease and improve the management side of the business as well. “In this new session you’ll learn about the new and different ways contractors are deploying technology to win contracts, reduce costs, and generate more profit,” the description says. Gruenberg will cover technologies involving lead generation through online research, customer tracking with CRM, job costing with integrated spread sheets, data collection and analysis, aerial measuring, and how to create compelling proposals. He’ll also discuss how digital photography and video are instrumental in communicating and cataloging what happens on your jobsites. “This seminar won’t solve all your technology problems but it will open your eyes to new cost-effective tools that will improve the management side of your business – and your bottom line,” according to the description.

For details and to register visit www.nationalpavementexpo.com.

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Contractor Snapshot

Allan Heydorn, Editor

Connecticut Startup Doubles Up Every Year Asphalt Repair Solutions works to broaden customer base for stability MOST STARTUP contractors don’t see their revenue double and profits increase for four consecutive years, but that’s exactly what happened when Dale Hardisty and Rob Bedard joined forces in 2013 to form Asphalt Repair Solutions, Newtown, CT. Both Hardisty and Bedard, co-owners, had worked for a paving company and each had worked independently doing pavement maintenance jobs on the side. As their independent work increased they began to rely on each other for help and often shared equipment.

“As I got more and more work I realized I couldn’t do it all myself,” Hardisty says. “When I got a patching job I couldn’t do it on the weekend because the plants weren’t open so I’d ask Rob to do it for me.”

So the two decided to pool their resources and start Asphalt Repair Solutions. “Helping each other out worked really well so we just decided to combine forces and give it a shot. See how it goes,” Bedard says.

It’s going pretty well.

They started the company with two crack filling units, two sealcoating machines, two pickup trucks, a one-ton dump truck and an old mini-excavator.

Bedard had done cracksealing for some towns so they continued that and were able to add small sealcoating jobs.

Today Asphalt Repair Solutions employs 20 people peak season doing milling, paving, sealcoating and cracksealing work. Commercial work generates 70% of sales with the remaining work split evenly between municipal and residential customers.

“Like any new business it was slow in the beginning, but every year it gets better and better,” Hardisty says. “Revenue has doubled each year in business, and profits have increased each year as well.”

“When we’re done we have no hesitation telling everyone we’ve done that job.”

Hardisty says that for the first few years they’ve been helped by two “really good” customers – one contractor and one enduser – who have provided a steady flow of work.

He says that about half their work is as a subcontractor, which was important for their early success and growth. “Working as a subcontractor helped because we didn’t have to sell the work and we didn’t have to carry the insurance or bonding for some of the jobs,” he says. Plus, they knew they’d get paid in a reasonable amount of time. “In some cases they even paid for the materials so we didn’t have those bills coming in,” he says.

Getting Money to Grow Like many startups, Asphalt Repair Solutions had trouble getting loans from banks. So Dale Hard Hardisty and Bedard isty R ob Bedard (left) runs the mil put themselves on a l and runs Asphalt R the paving crew a salary with no draw epair Solu t tions. and then put the money back into the company.

“We got frustrated so we “We do attract a lot of just decided to save up and buy people so we have to weed what we need ourselves,” Hardthem out, but we have gotten isty says. Their first cash equipsome good people out of it. ment purchase was a tri-axle Anybody decent is not going truck. “That felt pretty good.” to work for you if they don’t Then banks gradually were get compensated or don’t have willing to lend them money. benefits.”

In 2016 they bought a LeeBoy 8816 paver and a used 4-ft.

Not Growing Too Fast mill. The mill, Bedard says, they While the first few years have bought in Italy. “We found it been great, they’re cautious not on the Internet and flew over to grow too fast. to inspect it,” he says. “It was “Now we’re working trying such a good deal that it was less to spread it out, trying to get expensive to buy it and ship it work from a lot of different across the ocean than it was to people,” Bedard says. “We buy a used mill in the U.S. don’t want to have just that “We have a good reputation, one big account where we have we’re both good at what we all our eggs in one basket and do, and we’re both pretty hands then if something happens and on. We’re not driving around in we lose that account we’re in an air-conditioned truck. We’re trouble.” out there in the field.”

To help broaden their Hardisty says one reason for customer list, Hardisty and their success is the core crew Bedard hired their first they’ve hired, which he says is salesperson this year. “It’s nice a direct result of the company’s working for other contractors approach to employees. “We’re but it’s important to have your trying to make it a good place own customers too,” Bedard to work, trying to attract the says. “Our goal is to do the job best people,” Hardisty says. To the right way and to make sure that end the contractor offers the customer is happy,” Hardisty full health insurance, a 401(k) says. “We do quality work and plan with employer match, paid when we’re done we have no holidays and vacation time for hesitation telling everyone we’ve the office staff. done that job.”

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PAVEMENT Published by AC Business Media Inc.

Index Advertiser Index

PAGE

1-800-Pavement

6

Asphalt Reheat Systems LLC

30

B & E Seal Coat Products Inc.

30

Carlson Paving Products Inc.

67

Crafco Inc.

9, 47

Crum & Forester

58

Deery

60

Diamond Shield Fortifier

30

Dickson Industries Inc.

25

Elgin Sweeper Company

7

EZ-Liner

34

Graco

11

GuardTop LLC

35

Keystone Engineering

36

Keystone Plastics Inc.

32

LeeBoy

41

Maintenance Inc.

34

M-B Companies Inc.

36

MRL Equipment Company Inc.

31

National Pavement Expo

49

Nealco Equipment LLC

15

Neyra

37

N. I. Wilson Mfg. Co., Inc.

30

Pavement Maintenance supply Warehouse Inc.

34

Paynes Line and Signs

32

Quik Pave Products Inc.

10

Schwarze Industries

2

SealMaster

68

Seal-Rite

43

REPRINTS Denise Singsime at (800) 538-5544 ext. 1245 dsingsime@ACBusinessMedia.com.

Star

21

Stripes and Stops

32, 36

Superior Tire & Rubber Corp.

14

LIST RENTAL Elizabeth Jackson, Account Executive, Merit Direct LLC, Phone: (847) 492-1350 ext. 18 • Fax: (847) 492-0085 • ejackson@meritdirect.com

Tymco

59

Unique Paving Materials Corp.

33

Weiler

13

Wirtgen America Inc.

5

201 N. Main Street | Fort Atkinson, WI 53538 800.538-5544 • www.ACBusinessMedia.com www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement Editorial Office: Allan Heydorn, 2339 Stratford, Westchester, IL 60154 (708) 531-1612 | Fax: (708) 531-1613 | aheydorn@ACBusinessMedia.com PUBLICATION STAFF: Publisher: Amy Schwandt Editor/Conference Manager: Allan Heydorn Associate Editor: Jessica Stoikes Art Director: April Van Etten Ad Production Manager: Patti Brown Sr. Audience Development Manager: Wendy Chady Audience Development Manager: Angela Kelty ADVERTISING SALES: (800) 538-5544 Kris Flitcroft, Tom Lutzke, Jill Draeger, Eric Servais, Sean Dunphy, Amy Schwandt, Erica Finger, Denise Singsime FORCONSTRUCTIONPROS.COM WEBSITE: Digital Operations Manager: Nick Raether Digital Sales Manager: Monique Terrazas Editor: Larry Stewart Managing Editor: Kimberly Hegeman CHANGE OF ADDRESS & SUBSCRIPTIONS PO Box 3257, Northbrook, IL 60065-3257, Phone: (877) 201-3915 Fax: (800) 543-5055 • circ.pavement@omeda.com

AC BUSINESS MEDIA INC.: Chairman: Anil Narang President and CEO: Carl Wistreich Editorial Director: Greg Udelhofen ADVISORY BOARD: ACI Asphalt Contractors Inc., Maple Grove, MN: Jim Bebo Asphalt Contractors Inc., Union Grove, WI: Robert Kordus Asphalt Restoration Technology Systems, Orlando, FL: Connie Lorenz Capitol Sweeping Service, South Windsor, CT: Thomas Kuhns Clean Sweep Inc., Chattanooga, TN, Pete Phillips Custom Maintenance Services, Shippensburg, PA: Michael Nawa Eosso Brothers Paving; Hazlet, NJ: Tom Eosso Parking Lot Maintenance, Lake St. Louis, MO, Todd Bruening Petra Paving, Hampstead, NH: Chris Tammany Pioneer Paving, Albuquerque, NM: Don Rooney Robert Liles Parking Lot Service, Tyler, TX: Robert Liles Roberts Traffic, Hollywood, FL: Lisa Birchfield Roccie’s Asphalt Paving, Stamford, CT: Vincent Engongoro Rose Paving Co., Bridgeview, IL: Alan J. Rose Show Striping Inc. (SSI), Wisconsin Dells, WI: Amber Showalter T&N Asphalt Services, Salt Lake City, UT: Nick Howell The Rabine Group, Schaumburg, IL: Gary Rabine Young Sealcoating Inc, Lynchburg, VA: Steve Young ASSOCIATION REPRESENTATIVES: Pavement Coatings Technology Council: Anne LeHuray, Executive Director

Get fast, relevant product information in the Buyers Guide at

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Tailgate Talk

|

Brad Humphrey

Can Contractors Bring America Back?

THINK THIS TITLE is too far fetched? Consider some thoughts from an article by James Surowiecki in The New Yorker magazine entitled “The Pay Is Too Damn Low.” • Fast food restaurants and department stores pay minimum wage because of low margins on the products and services they provide.

• These same industries could get away with such pay in past years because many workers were teenagers and, per Surowiecki, “underemployed married women.”

• Due to recent economic conditions, “main” breadwinners are actually filling many of these same jobs.

I think it is safe to say that most of us do not believe that America will prosper when the local hamburger franchise or low-cost department store chain employs a majority of this country’s workers.

Is it possible that contractors, hiring construction workers, can bring back America? Can construction company owners and leaders bring back the ever-needed middle class?

Here’s why I think contractors can bring back not only the middle class but our great country too!

First, few contractors pay their workers minimum wage? Why? Come on, that’s way too easy. Construction is hard work, conditions are often less than ideal, and even the most basic of laborers still needs to be able to read, count, learn and think.

It is not uncommon at all for construction workers to gross $35K – $60K in wages

during the year. Can you think of any better industry to help spark the revival of the middle class and the rebuilding of America than construction?

Second, what this country needs right now, in addition to jobs, is a resurgence of morale and motivation. I know few industries that have more self-motivated leaders than construction.

Construction leaders are often, by nature, more optimistic and entrepreneurlike in their thinking and actions. For the most part, such leaders are learners and enjoy seeing others do well and succeed. Can you think of any better spirit for America to embrace today?

Third, the greatest percentage of contractors are “Red, White and Blue” Americans. They understand hard work and appreciate the opportunity they’ve been given to create their own business and sell their services. Can you think of a better reason for America to begin prospering again?

Fourth, the greatest percentage of contractors are focused on employing the best available workers… regardless of age, sex or color! I’ve had the honor to consult with contractors in all areas of the U.S., and nowhere have I ever found a hint of a contractor who was prejudiced or had a hatred for people different than themselves. In fact, I found just the opposite: contractors who paid and recognized

their workers for jobs well done no matter their color, age or sex. Can you think of a better attitude more Americans need to embrace today?

Fifth, no one works harder than the construction owner and leader. They are often the first in the office or on the job site each morning and the last to turn out the lights at night.

Their work ethic is a testimony to how much they love their company, their employees and their industry. Can you think of a better strategy for many of our politicians and government leaders to take?

Sixth, contractors recognize talent and are not afraid to pay what it’s worth. It truly makes contractors feel proud when they know that their workers are paid well enough to own a house, to pay for their kid’s college or to take a nice family vacation every year. Can you think of a better financial objective to get the middle class back again and stronger than ever?

Seventh, as most contractors know, the infrastructure of the United States is in horrible condition. There are so many projects that need to be funded and completed that there may not be enough contractors and construction workers to complete all of the work if it were all to come in at the same time. Can you think of a better way to truly stimulate the economy with “real shovel-ready” projects?

Eighth, while many construction leaders, owners and workers are college educated, some of the most successful

contractors do not have a college diploma but quite honestly, are smarter than a lot of people with a PhD! Contractors and their people are creative, think outside the box, are not afraid to take a risk, are strategic problem solvers and have “horse sense” based on experience.

Can you think of a better group of people to place more trust for rebuilding the U.S.?

Yes, there are a lot of reasons why I think contractors and their leaders can bring back the America that rewards hard work and big dreams! The dwindling “middle class” can be resuscitated and much of this can be achieved through the construction vision, planning and execution of contractors.

You and I are part of the greatest industry in the world. Breathe it in! Be proud of yourself and your workers. Let your people know how much you appreciate them by stopping by to tell them yourself this next week. Can you imagine what would happen in America if all owners and leaders did the same?

Brad Humphrey is President of Pinnacle Development Group, a consulting firm that specializes in the construction industry. For details on Brad’s National Pavement Expo sessions, Feb. 6-10 in Cleveland, visit www. nationalpavementexpo.com. For more information about Brad’s “Two Minute Drill” or his company visit www.pinnacledg.com.

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