As asphalt contractors, it’s our job to best guard your ground in accordance with your needs and budget. It’s why, when possible, we tell our clients about one of our cost-effective paving services called cold milling. Cold milling is the process of removing asphalt surfaces, without having to repave.
When we mill asphalt for our clients, we remove the affected layer(s) and create smooth drivable road surfaces. Like the best hairstylist, this can mean just trimming a tiny bit off the top as a cleanup, or a full cut to get rid of split ends (or potholes in this metaphor. There are cutters involved, but we’re nothing like a hair stylist, as we found out earlier in quarantine. We do accept tips, though).
We go by the guidelines created by the Asphalt Recycling and Reclaiming Association (ARRA), the same ones followed by the US Federal Highway Administration:
- Class I Milling to remove surface irregularities
- Class II Milling to uniform depth as shown on plans and specifications
- Class III Same as class II with the addition of cross slope
- Class IV Milling to the base or subgrade (full depth)
- Class V Milling to different depths at different locations
Asphalt paving companies can also perform a similar process called micro-milling, where you only remove 1 inch or less of existing asphalt prior to putting down a surface treatment, but this leaves a texture on the existing pavement (this can be useful to grind in features like the rumble strips you see on median strips, to guide drivers)
We can also use the pavement milling process to control the height of and create clearance for curbs, manholes and catch basins, or change the slope of your lot for the grade adjustments we need to facilitate proper drainage. Furthermore, it’s not just for asphalt parking lots: we can perform micro milling concrete surfaces on a concrete driveway.
How it works on asphalt and concrete is we bring in our cold planer: an asphalt milling machine that subtracts pavement or concrete from driving surfaces. It’s an impressive piece of engineering: the rotary cutting drum is stored in protective housing, designed with replaceable carbide bits (or teeth) that spiral in from the edges to push the loosened asphalt onto a conveyor belt for easy transport. We like a model that sprays water through nozzles within to keep down the dust and preserve the life of the teeth as long as possible. Depending on how rough the aggregate of the old existing asphalt is or presence of damaging road furniture, the teeth can last from days to mere hours. (We’re not stylists and we’re definitely not dentists). We then remove the planned portions of the pavement surface to the required cross-slope.
As an added benefit on top, cold milling is environmentally friendly: the rehabilitated pavement can be recycled! After removing, it is placed inside a crusher machine, where it is ground up and can then be used as an aggregate (together with a cement binding agent) to create new hot mix asphalt pavement. The process is called asphalt pavement RAP, or reclaimed asphalt pavement, and it drastically reduces the environmental impact a paving company has while resurfacing.
Asphalt paving contractors have a lot to offer. Ask yours if cold milling is the hot new solution for you.
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