A crew lead does not need another definition of cold mix. They need to know whether they can shovel it in January. Unique's comparison video is for that question. Beacon put the side-by-side in the lab's own words, in a little over four minutes.
The detail that matters is the freezer. The narrator says both mixes sat at 15 degrees for 24 hours. He says the competitor's mix falls apart in his hands, and the UPM mix stays together so a crew can shovel it and the patch can move with the road. That is what the video says about the material. It is not a Beacon test result.
Another company hiring Beacon for a comparison video is buying something a salesperson can send before a winter demo. The lab can open the cans and talk about the rock. A buyer on a job site usually will not wait for that. The video can. It can go to a distributor, a city specification, or the person who still thinks any cold mix is the same once it is on the truck.
Unique did not need a second data sheet. They needed the cold-weather difference said out loud, next to the other product. That is what this video is for.
Read transcript Video dialogue and narration
[00:00.000] UPM permanent pavement repair material is a high-performance cold mix that's designed
[00:10.860] and used to permanently repair potholes, utility cuts, alligator sections, and other applications
[00:17.140] that require a quick and permanent repair in asphalt and concrete pavements.
[00:22.960] Everything starts in the unique paving materials lab, where scientists formulate custom cold
[00:28.280] mixes for each of the four weather regions of the country using different types of tested
[00:33.200] aggregates.
[00:34.800] These cans are filled with rock, or aggregate as we call it.
[00:38.000] We have samples from all over the United States and even the world.
[00:41.800] We have tested over 11,000 different types of aggregate from different regions.
[00:46.280] We do this to find which local aggregate will work best with our custom cold mix formulation.
[00:51.640] We need to be able to use rock that's locally available to our clients to mix with our proprietary
[00:56.560] formula.
[00:57.880] The only way to find this out is by testing it.
[01:01.640] We test the rock's size, absorption, strength, as well as the soundness of the material by
[01:06.500] running it through many freeze thaw cycles.
[01:09.240] We also test the ability of the UPM asphalt blend to coat and remain on the aggregate
[01:14.080] when the UPM mix is put in the pothole.
[01:16.800] When the mix comes in contact with snow, water, and various de-icing solutions, we want to
[01:21.720] make sure the aggregate we use allows our UPM blend to stay on the rock and not strip
[01:26.360] away.
[01:27.680] Not all aggregate is the same, so we have to custom blend our product to work with
[01:31.920] our customer's local aggregate to guarantee it's going to stay in the pothole.
[01:36.640] Hot mix asphalt should never be used for patching using the throw and go method because it's
[01:41.760] not designed for that type of repair.
[01:44.400] It's not self-priming and cannot be properly compacted by hand like UPM cold mix can.
[01:50.360] However, every grade of UPM cold mix is self-priming and ready to use, so there's no need to sit
[01:56.840] in long lines at an asphalt plant, simply load it from your storage pile and go.
[02:02.340] So how does UPM cold mix stand up to a competitor's mix?
[02:07.120] Here we have UPM high-performance cold mix in one of our competitors.
[02:11.120] What we're going to show here is the workability at lower temperatures today.
[02:14.560] Both of these samples have been in the freezer at 15 degrees for 24 hours.
[02:19.280] You'll notice that the UPM mix is shinier on the surface than the competitor's mix,
[02:24.280] and a lot of that's the function of viscosity and workability, so we're going to show you
[02:27.800] that now.
[02:28.800] So we're going to take the competitor's mix, take it out of the box carefully, take our
[02:36.960] plastic off.
[02:38.800] So a mix at 15 degrees should be nice and flexible, and as you can see, the mix just
[02:46.400] falls apart.
[02:48.320] So it's not, not only is it not workable, but it's also not cohesive.
[02:52.640] As you can see, it's falling apart.
[02:57.440] Now we'll take the UPM mix, do the exact same thing, take off our plastic.
[03:12.560] Notice how the mix stays together, is cohesive and workable.
[03:20.520] What this does is it allows the crews to easily shovel this and put it in the pothole
[03:26.320] as well as let the material move with the road as the road moves in the wintertime through
[03:31.560] the various frees and thaws.
[03:33.800] Once compacted, the finished mix will stay in the pothole.
[03:39.240] Lack of cohesion, lack of workability is going to have our competitors mix coming out of
[03:45.320] the pothole typically within 24 hours.
[03:50.200] There's a reason unique paving materials has the brands to which all others try to
[03:54.400] compare.
[03:55.400] For more information about this amazing product, please give us a call today at 800-441-4880
[04:03.160] or visit our website you see on the screen.
