60 Sep 2011 FLCAJ

ately, higher oil prices have been the root of many industries having to raise their prices, and, unfortunately, in some instances, it has consumers crying “price gouging.” The truth is every in-dustry is in the same boat. Higher gas prices are not just a pain in your pocketbook; it is also a pain in the pocketbooks of many petroleum-based industries, too. Gasoline, tires, roofing materials, and asphalt products are all directly related to the oil industry, and because of this, when you see prices going up at the pump, you can almost guarantee you will be seeing price increases in these industries as well. They are not jumping on the bandwagon to take

Making Informed Decisions about Asphalt Maintenance

L

by Connie Lorenz

FLCAJ Sep 2011 61

advantage of anyone but must pass on the increased prices from their suppliers in order to stay in business. Most asphalt contractors received notification from the asphalt product suppliers months ago that they were predicting a price increase soon and that there will probably be a few more increases before this oil situation is over. Because of the constantly changing market, some asphalt contractors were forced to change their proposals from being valid for 45 days down to 30 days in order to cover labor and material costs while still trying to provide the best price possible to clients. When your suppliers inform you of any types of changes in their industry, if they are a trusted vendor, please heed their warning or at least do more research on the subject to see if what they say is true. We are all paying the same price at the pump…when you see that start to fall, within a couple of months, you will see asphalt prices fall as well.Good Money After Bad! Another issue that asphalt contractors have to deal with is properties that have recently had a new one-inch asphalt overlay installed—within the last five years—that look worse than some of the properties whose roadways are 30 years old. As easy as it would be to blame shoddy paving con-tractors, the problem really is the result of the customer trying to save money. Boards were trying to cut corners and the areas where they were cutting corners were not the best place to start!

62 Sep 2011 FLCAJ

Reflective cracking, in lay-men’s terms, happens when the earth vibrates as it rotates, and this slight vibration causes old defects in asphalt to rise up into the new asphalt cap in the exact pattern of the defects beneath the surface. This phe-nomenon can become quite the drain on a community’s budget if they are not careful. Milling and removing the asphalt cap and stabilizing the base material before installing your new asphalt cap gives your new pavement a stable foundation and helps you get the maximum life expectancy from your new asphalt cap. As an illustration, picture what would happen if you installed new tile on top of shag carpeting. It might look good at first, but, as soon as someone walks on it, the grout lines will break and

Most customers are sticker shocked when they see the price of a new one and one-fourth inch overlay that includes the milling and removal of the existing asphalt cap before installing the new pavement. This is the best way to install new pavement and is highly recommended on

properties that are severely deteriorated or cracked. Not knowing this when obtaining bids, you might receive some bids that include milling and others that just include the new asphalt cap. Noting the significant price difference, some boards choose to elimi-nate this service and install their new pavement on top of the old, defective, cracked asphalt. Within months of an overlay without milling out the defec-tive asphalt, a property will

begin to see fine cracks appear on their pavement and the edges of their roadways begin to unravel. If it’s noticed within the first year of the in-stallation and the contractor is contacted, they will associate the cracking with reflective cracking, which was mentioned somewhere in the contract’s fine print, and walk away without blame. Others begin to notice it when it’s too late and even the most reliable contractor cannot help them.

Be in the “know” and don’t dwell on the bad decisions of the past. Know that these decisions are neither the contractor’s fault nor yours. Board members and property managers change on a regular basis, but your community is there forever. Set up a compre-hensive asphalt maintenance plan for your community today.

FLCAJ Sep 2011 63

eventually the entire floor will fail. The same concept applies. I have a client that had pre-viously installed their new overlay on top of heavily sealcoated, cracked asphalt and within six years they were finding that they had to replace it. At the time of the overlay, the board predicted that they would get a mini-mum of 15 years from their new asphalt. Needless to say, five years after they installed their asphalt, it was in worse condition than it was before they had the new asphalt installed! This property fell 10 years short of their projected useful life of their new asphalt cap and had to special assess the residents of their commu-nity to have the roadways milled and paved correctly. The board was verbally

assaulted about the poor decisions they had made. When these mistakes happen, whose fault is it? Is it the contractor who initially provided a quote that included the milling and removal of the asphalt cap, but after the work was done, the cost ended up being much higher? Is it the contractor that provided the quote for just a one-inch overlay and said milling and removal was overrated and unnecessary? Or was it the board that was blinded by the lowest price

64 Sep 2011 FLCAJ

and forced the other contrac-tors to meet the specifications of the lowest quote provided in order to compare “apples to apples?” We have all learned that the benefit of a low price is often over-shadowed by the eventual cost of a poor quality project! Knowledge is power! I believe that there are no right or wrong decisions in life, there are just some that are informed and others that are uninformed. If you are a board member or a property manager, then it’s up to you and your community to research the situation and make an educated decision by what you discover, not by what someone tells you and definitely not based on price alone. We all have access to the Internet to obtain infor-mation we might need to make educated decisions about things we have to spend our money on. Gas prices and everything else that has been affected by the volatile oil market will eventually return to a version of normal and, once that occurs, within a few months, the asphalt industry will begin to see price decreases as well. Be in the “know” and don’t dwell on the bad deci-sions of the past. Know that these decisions are neither the contractor’s fault nor yours. Board members and property managers change on a regular basis, but your community is there forever. Set up a comprehensive asphalt maintenance plan for your community today. Connie Lorenz is President of Asphalt Restoration Tech-nology. For more information, visit www.asphaltnews.com.