All Evotherm, all the time: Rogers Group, Inc.
Nov 07, 2019
Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, Rogers Group Inc. is the largest privately-owned construction aggregate company in the country. Family-owned and -operated for more than 110 years, Rogers Group’s high-quality products and services have helped build communities from the ground up. With over 2,000 employees and more than 70 quarries and 40 asphalt plants, Rogers Group supports business operations in 12 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
We had a chance to talk to Quality Control Manager and Plant Superintendent Stuart Boone to understand how Rogers Group transitioned to “all-Evotherm” operations at its Carolina plants. Boone shared Evotherm’s benefits and how it has helped the company achieve success within these two states below.
Describe your experience using Evotherm.
Rogers Group has been incorporating Evotherm into its mixes for nearly a decade across the Carolinas. We originally used Evotherm in our North Carolina plants as a compaction aid for hot mix. After realizing its supplemental benefits besides compaction, we transitioned to all Evotherm across the two North Carolina plants five years ago.
What led to the transition to all-Evotherm operations in South Carolina?
We switched over to all Evotherm at our South Carolina plants five years ago to remove fibers in the open grade mix. Adding Evotherm allowed us to drop temperatures nearly 70 degrees (from 330 to 260 degrees). The fiber removal ability and lower production temperatures led to substantial cost savings.
For those who aren’t familiar with Evotherm, what would you say about its benefits?
Since making the switch to Evotherm, we’ve been able to considerably cut costs across the board. Incorporating Evotherm gives us the ability to remove fibers, providing us with proper mix consistency and reliable testing capabilities. Since fiber is expensive and labor intensive, we were eager to explore alternatives. Before Evotherm, fibers were absorbing 0.5% of the asphalt cement in our open graded mix. Evotherm has reduced the AC from 6.2% to 5.7%, saving our customers money. Also, lowering production temperatures makes our plants more efficient and requires less man power. The performance benefits coupled with the compaction and cost-savings incentives proved to be incomparable to other products on the market.
Tell us about a memorable project or experience with Evotherm.
When we first started using Evotherm nearly 10 years ago, Ingevity’s technical team came to the project site and was very helpful each step of the way. Our first experience was a private job for Greenville County in the middle of winter. The outside temperature ranged from 30 to 40 degrees, and we were able to pour the mix at 250 degrees. The parking has maintained its quality a decade later and looks great. Paving this project in the dead of winter was a huge success and we’ve been incorporating Evotherm more ever since.
