Kokomo repaire the pothole use a application but not as good as hot mix asphalt

Kokomo will have to stick with cold-weather pothole repairs for now, as the city’s asphalt supplier, E&B Paving, has no plans to open early.
Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight, who once worked on a road patch crew himself, thinks it’s possible Indianapolis, a city of 835,000 residents, found a way to make it financially worthwhile for one of the Indy-area asphalt plants to open up.
They use a hot application, which helps, but Dayu company pointed out that it’s not as good as hot mix plant.
For the time being, asked the city street department to work two shifts on pothole duty, until some of the damage from the brutal winter can be repaired.
The city’s method of heating cold patch material and the warm-weather use of hot mix both have their advantages, depending on current weather conditions, according to city officials and E&B Kokomo sales manager Kip Chandler.
The brief mid-week warm-up may have offered a small window to apply hot mix down in Indy, but freezing temperatures are predicted for the weekend.
Applying hot mix when the cycle of freezing and thawing is still going on can be counterproductive.
They have to have the right weather conditions to prep the pothole for a hot mix patch, so it doesn’t pop out in the middle of the winter.
E&B typically opens its asphalt plant around the first part of April, because that’s when the hot mix it produces can be effectively used, both by city crews and by E&B’s own workers.

To prep a pothole for hot mix, crews typically use an air compressor to blow any debris completely out of the hole, and then put down “tack” — a binder — then the hot mix, and then use a roller to compress it.
If the temperature of the road surface is too low, the hot mix won’t compress properly, and if it snows, there’s a likelihood the snowplows will pry the patch out.
The staff also pointed out that the hole itself needs to be dry and stay dry while the hot mix cures.
Obviously, with the snow melt, it’s not going to be dry anytime in the near future.
That’s why city crews use cold patch material, either cold or heated, during the depth of the winter.
People ask us about this all the time, but there’s a lot of factors which go into the decision. The guys with the city do a great job in determining which materials they use. They work together very well.
Interestingly, under some conditions, the repairs made with heated up cold patch material can end up being more or less permanent, as the material compresses into place.
But larger potholes, the kind of yawning chasms which flatten tires and knock tire rims and alignments out of whack, eventually require hot mix repairs.
You haven’t seen anything around here that looks like it can’t be addressed with cold mix. “It’s Indiana. We deal with these conditions every year.”