Like any community in the Upper Midwest, the city of Edina, Minn.—population 50,000—experiences its fair share of potholes. And like communities across the U.S., Edina has aging road infrastructure in need of repair. In June 2019, the city opted to invest in a piece of technology that could address both of these issues: a Roadpatcher from Schwarze Industries.
According to Chet Boom, an asphalt worker for Edina’s public works department, keeping up with the sheer volume of pothole repair and road maintenance can be a challenge. In his 11 years working for the city, he said, Edina has used a combination of hot-mix asphalt, cold-mix asphalt, and spray patching methods for pothole repair. The city opted for the Roadpatcher in large part because it improves efficiency by allowing for a single operator to conduct spray patching repairs, he said.
Repairs with the Roadpatcher utilize a four-step process. First, loose rock and debris are cleaned from the pothole. “Then, we will spray a layer of tack oil that acts as a binder to the sides of the hole for the new filler material to stick to,” Boom said. Next, a hot asphalt emulsion and aggregate mixture fills the hole. “Once the pothole is filled with the mix, we then cover it with a layer of dry rock to prevent bleed-through and vehicles tracking oil all over,” Boom concluded. The operator is able to conduct the entire process from the comfort and safety of the cab—another major factor in Edina’s decision to purchase the Roadpatcher.
