COLORADO COMPANY FINDS POTHOLE REPAIRING SOLUTION WITH BAGELA RECYCLER

13 Sep COLORADO COMPANY FINDS POTHOLE REPAIRING SOLUTION WITH BAGELA RECYCLER

Winter weather creates numerous issues for roads and infrastructure. The weather also creates problems for companies aimed with fixing poor infrastructure. For example, M. Leeder Construction prefers hot asphalt as their primary pothole repairing solution.

However, in Colorado, asphalt plants close in the winter. As a result, maintenance crews work with cold patch, which is not particularly reliable and must be replaced with hot patch in the spring. Yes, towns and municipalities must pay contractors or internal teams twice if they use cold patch as their pothole repairing mix!

Yet, M. Leeder was not satisfied and found the Bagela Asphalt Recycler as a reliable source of hot mix asphalt to replace standard plants. For M. Leeder the Bagela BA 10000 asphalt recycler solved their issues. As Matt Leeder, president and founder of M. Leeder Construction describes:

“In the spring and at times in the fall our capability of doing work often relies on the weather and whether or not the asphalt plants are open. With the help of the Bagela, this year we were able to produce 400 tons of hot asphalt during periods when the plants were closed. The Bagela produces a very acceptable 5/8 mix that we use for pothole repair and a finished course mix that we use on our paving projects.”

Bagela Immediately Impacts Bottom Line

M. Leeder Construction primarily focuses on asphalt paving and asphalt maintenance. However, recently the company moved into recycling asphalt and using the recycled product. As a result, they dramatically decreased their costs, which translated into savings for their customers.

“As we have grown into the asphalt recycling business we developed a permanent site that allows other contractors to bring the asphalt that they have torn up or milled at other projects and dump it at our yard. We have set up the Bagela on an elevated pad, which allows it to dump the recycled product directly into asphalt trucks and trailers below. We also accept from area contractors waste concrete that we process into a ¾ inch aggregate, which we use as a base on new driveway and parking lot projects.”

Leeder founded the company in 1985 as a small owner/operator business doing asphalt maintenance. Now, the company employs 12 full-time staff members and up to 17 employees during the peak season.

“With the help of the Bagela, we were able to operate year around and had our material costs drop by 25 percent. Forty percent of the product that we laid in 2013 was recycled asphalt versus virgin asphalt. We are very happy with the Bagela’s production rates. We are enjoying the flexibility of being able to reduce and have a ready supply of product when we need it and not being at the mercy of the asphalt plants. The economic impact on our company was immediate. Our overall profitability increased by 12 percent. The Bagela was critical to us being able to maintain profitability during the economic downturn.” For more about M. Leeder Construction growing their business with the Bagela Asphalt Recycler, here is more information.