Restrictions during the milling and repaving of Princess Ann Street, a main thoroughfare of Fredericksburg, Virginia’s historic district, limited work to 15 shifts in order to keep the area open to tourists as much as possible.
“It’s not a lot of time. We have to be very efficient, very task-oriented,” said Justin Thacker, owner and president of White Oak Asphalt, the milling subcontractor on the job.
White Oak Asphalt used a Cat PM620 Profiler to complete the work in the specified time.
“In the really tight areas of the historic district this machine’s agility, and the way that it tracks not only vertically but horizontally, does a tremendous job,” Mr. Thacker said.
“It enables us to get in and out of areas quickly, where we could really get hung up. Without the Cat PM620, this wouldn’t be possible in the shifts that are allotted.”
In an 8-hour shift, he estimated the PM620 is 25 percent more productive than the machine that it replaced.
“The improvements that have been made enable the PM620 to be more efficient, and more productive,” Mr. Thacker said.
The crew milled approximately 350 tonnes of asphalt and other material in each eight-hour shift. City specs required milling 4.5 inches deep.
“We’re making a particularly deep cut on this. There is a lot of spalling and segregation down into the base,” he said.
The PM620 successfully met the challenge of full-depth milling. “It cuts four and a half inches just as easily as it cuts two inches,” Mr. Thacker said.
“When we do a full-depth mill, sometimes milling machines can slow up and choke underneath the cut. Not the Cat PM620.”
The use of the PM620 on high profile jobs like Princess Ann Street has expanded White Oak Asphalt’s market share.
“It has changed our operation. The visibility, the professionalism, and the magnitude of the machine on the jobsite attracts customers. Anybody that is in the industry that sees this machine is automatically drawn to it. It’s amazing,” he said.
The machine’s production enables the company to do more work in a season.
“When you’re able to pack 25 percent more revenue into your jobs, it makes a tremendous difference.”