The owners of adjacent territories often wonder how to pave a path or a platform on a site, and what material is better to use for this. For these purposes, at the end of the last century, cold asphalt was invented — a special artificial pavement.

What is cold asphalt?

This modern road-building material, which has no analogues, can be used both for large-scale patching of roads, and for the arrangement of asphalt pavements in summer cottage construction. Cold asphalt, its composition is such components as:

1. Bitumen. It is an oil road resin having a liquid consistency.
2. plasticizers. They form a temporary film that prevents the bitumen from setting prematurely before adhering to the substrate.
3. Crushed stone, gravel or coarse sand. Due to the sharp edges of such pebbles, cold asphalt adheres better and is compacted.

What does cold asphalt look like?

The production of a mixture called cold asphalt is carried out in a concrete mixing plant. Different fractions of gravel, crushed stone, sand are cleaned and dried, then heated to 100ºС. After that, the stones are loaded into a special mixer, in which they are mixed with bitumen. Then plasticizers are added to the mixture, and the greater the amount of such additives, the longer the cold asphalt will be stored. The finished material looks like a black, slightly loose mass. Cold asphalt prepared in this way in bags or plastic buckets is sold.

Cold asphalt — characteristics

When choosing cold asphalt, the technical characteristics of which differ depending on the type of material, you need to know its composition. The main feature of asphalt concrete is the preservation of its viscosity, since the presence of this indicator allows the use of cold asphalt in any place and at any temperature. Different types of slow thickening and medium thickening bitumen provide the necessary viscosity. Its amount in the total volume of the mixture should be 4-6%. Plasticizers provide long-term storage of the material without changing its properties.

Cold asphalt — application

This artificial road construction material can be used for a variety of tasks. Cold asphalt in buckets or bags can be used for such works:

1. Asphalting of the road (patching).
2. Repair of the road surface after communications were laid under it.
3. Laying asphalt at hatches.
4. Laying paths in the arrangement of landscape design.
5. The blind area of ​​the foundation of buildings.
6. Creation of sites in front of a private house or garage with an area of ​​\u200b\u200bno more than 3 square meters. m.
7. Additional waterproofing of flat roofs.

Benefits of cold asphalt

Laying asphalt concrete is simple and accessible to any summer resident. Cold asphalt is a material that is easy to work with because it has many advantages:

1. Finished material consistency. Cold artificial asphalt can be used immediately after purchase.
2. Fast styling. For such work, depending on the area, it may take from several minutes to an hour. Besides, preliminary long preparation of a working surface is not required.
3. For tamping the coating does not need heavy equipment.
4. Dry asphalt is not afraid of low temperatures, so you can work with it even at a temperature of -25ºС. This is especially true in winter, when due to snow, frost or rain it is not possible to use traditional materials for roadway repair.
5. Long-term storage under any temperature conditions.
6. Work safety as there are no hot processes.
7. Ease of transportation. The material is packed in 50 kg bags or 25 kg buckets, so it can be transported in the trunk of a car.

Differences between hot and cold asphalt

The popularity of cold asphalt is increasing today. Therefore, those who decide to work with such material need to know how the cold mix for pavement repair differs from hot asphalt:

1. Temperature. As the name of the material suggests, cold asphalt can be used without heating, immediately after opening the package. Fast asphalt, as it is also called, can be laid even at low temperatures, while when working with hot material, the air must have a minimum temperature of +5ºС.
2. Composition of the mixture. In the production of cold asphalt, liquid bitumen is used, and not viscous, as for hot material. Since the hydrocarbon compounds from the liquid composition evaporate faster, the resulting road material hardens faster, which cannot be said about hot asphalt.
3. Preparation method. Hot mixture for asphalt repair should be used within 2-3 hours, and cold material will not lose its properties either after a week or a month of storage.
4. The area of ​​the repaired site. Cold organo-mineral mixture can only be laid on small areas, while hot material is more profitable to use on large road areas.

Types of cold asphalt

Depending on the size of the mineral grains that make up this material, cold asphalt concrete is divided into the following types:

1. Highly porous crushed stone – the size of crushed stone can reach 40 mm.
2. crushed stone – the maximum stone size is 20 mm.
3. gravel — pebbles can have the same dimensions as in the previous form.
4. Sandy – the maximum grain size is 10 mm.

By the number of incoming components, cold asphalt is divided into the following types:

1. Type A — the most expensive type of mixture, which includes at least 50% crushed stone.
2. Type B – crushed stone content from 40 to 50%.
3. Type D — such cheap mixtures consist of stone chips, screenings, sand.

Cold asphalt — laying technology

Working with asphalt concrete is very simple. Cold asphalt laying consists of the following steps:

1. We remove all damaged pieces of the old asphalt pavement.
2. To save an expensive mixture, gravel and sand can be added to the bottom of the pit and compacted well.
3. For better adhesion, the bottom and walls of the pothole can be treated with bitumen.
4. A mixture for patching is laid on the prepared site. Its thickness should not exceed 5 cm. It should be remembered that the fresh layer of the mixture should protrude about 2 cm above the existing one. This will serve as an allowance for tamping.
5. It is carried out using a vibrating plate, while moving from the edges of the site to its center.
6. The last step will be backfilling the new area with a dry cement-sand mixture. The operation of the newly created asphalt pavement can be started in 5-6 hours.