All Evotherm, all the time: National Paving
Mar 09, 2020
Since 1964, National Asphalt has been a well-respected asphalt producer in the Fairfax, Virginia, area. By concentrating solely on asphalt production, National has emerged as one of northern Virginia’s premier asphalt manufacturing facilities.
Much like the company he’s dedicated the last 30 years of his working life to, Tim Boone is just as seasoned and expert. Tim learned the industry while working a paving crew job one summer as a student and today serves as National’s Chief Operating Officer. He’s seen it all; he’s particular and discerning about the products and materials National uses; and he’s committed to providing only the best-performing products to his asphalt paving customers.
“We use Evotherm in every ton of asphalt the comes out of our facility,” said Tim. “And for good reason.” With Tim’s guidance, National is entering its third paving season incorporating Evotherm into every ton of asphalt produced. Tim shares with us National’s experience transitioning to all-Evotherm operations.
What led to National’s transition to all-Evotherm operations?
Our facility is located in a very urban location in northern Virginia and being a good neighbor to the community is important. We wanted to use warm-mix asphalt for quite some time as a way to lower the production temperatures at our plant and have less of an environmental impact.
Our liquid asphalt doesn’t foam so foaming as a warm-mix alternative wasn’t an option, and we had also tried a few other chemical warm-mix products. Evotherm was the only product that worked well and met our needs.
For the first year, we used Evotherm as a liquid antistrip, while we also worked to lower temperatures and see what additional results we saw. We immediately saw lower emissions out of our plant and very quickly chose to be a 100% warm-mix operation with Evotherm.
Describe your experience since incorporating Evotherm into your mixes.
Our experience has been incredibly positive. Our facility is fully FOB which is unique in our area, where most other plants usually offer lay-down services as well.
We didn’t inform our customers before we transitioned to all-Evotherm mixes. Initially, their comments were things like: “The material isn’t as hot!” and “Where’s all the steam that usually comes off the mix?”. We would just ask “But is it working?” and their overwhelming response was: “Yes, it’s working great.” I think that’s some of the best push-back and proof-in-the-product you could ask for.
When we did begin to educate the lay-down crews of our customers about warm-mix and its benefits, they were quite receptive. They were impressed with the longer working windows; They were easily moving around the asphalt at 230 degrees like it was the typically high 300 degrees of hot mix. Plus, they were also seeing better compaction more easily on the jobs.
For those who may not be using Evotherm, what would you say about its benefits?
Get your temperatures low and then commit to keeping them that way. Warm mix should be just that: warm!
We committed to warm mix to become a better neighbor in our community and never could have done this without lowering temperatures, which we couldn’t have done without the Evotherm product and their team of professionals who’ve helped us make a high-quality product we are very proud of.
Tell us about a memorable project or experience with Evotherm.
I can say that our city officials, in particular, have been very vocal about the positive difference they notice in our air quality since we transitioned to warm-mix. In my over 30 years with National, I can’t remember a year that passed without multiple comments or complaints from residents and officials about the smoke or odor surrounding our facility. Since we’ve been using Evotherm, the complaint count has been zero. I’m proud that we’ve found a way to be a more environmentally friendly neighbor. Everyone is winning.
Anything else you’d like to share about your experience with Ingevity, Evotherm or both?
Members of the Ingevity team were onsite with us here in Virginia almost 24/7 at the beginning, willingly, to ensure everything went smoothly as we went all-Evotherm. And even last year, Ingevity visited our paving customers with us and spent as much time as was needed to have everyone comfortable with the product and the process.
