Diesel Fuel Is RUINING Your Asphalt

There’s a reason that diesel fuel isn’t legal or accepted by DOTs and heavy highway jobs. And forget the whole tree-hugging environmental stuff; that’s all irrelevant here. Diesel fuel is ruining the asphalt you’re laying. It’s as simple as that.

Customers don’t want their pavement failing sooner than it should. And that’s exactly what diesel fuel causes the asphalt to do. If you take pride in your work, and you care about your final product, this article might be for you.

Don’t Use Diesel As A Release Agent

Let me break this down for you. Diesel fuel is a stripping agent. Its solvency breaks the bitumen down and strips it from the aggregate, very quickly (which is why everyone uses it to clean asphalt off of their equipment, right?).

If it is so loved by everyone because it’s so good at melting down asphalt, why on earth would you use it as a release agent too? Especially when crews are spraying diesel, like no one’s business into the hopper, on their tools, in their truck beds, and wherever else they can; God forbid they put it in their rollers (we’ve seen it all too often).

When the diesel fuel gets into the asphalt, it immediately starts to break down the oils in the mix. After laying your fresh mat, the diesel doesn’t go anywhere. It keeps eating through the asphalt and cutting the oil. And not just for a couple of days, either. Diesel fuel takes nearly 3 months before it biodegrades and stops affecting your pavement. By the time it has biodegraded out, the diesel fuel has already wreaked havoc in the asphalt–disintegrating the asphalt and shortening the lifespan of the pavement.

Not what you want to see when you’re reputation is directly tied to the work you do.

Is Being Cheap Worth It?

I get it. Diesel fuel is cheap. The last thing you want to do is spend more money on a product that, seemingly, you can get for cheaper. There’s no denying the upfront cost of diesel fuel alternative asphalt release agents and asphalt removers.

But is the cheap price tag of diesel worth it?

After all, many asphalt release agent alternatives, like PavePro, are more cost-effective than diesel fuel, don’t harm your mix, and work better. Let’s take a look.

PavePro Is The Ultimate Asphalt Release Agent

PavePro is significantly better than diesel fuel. Other than having to pay for shipping, I haven’t heard of a solid argument as to why diesel fuel could be better.

“But didn’t you just say that anything good at melting asphalt shouldn’t be used as a release agent?”

Yes, when it comes to diesel. But PavePro is different. Take a look at this.

Tired of your good-for-nothing asphalt solvent or release agent and ready to make a switch?

PavePro Is Biodegradable

There is more to the satisfaction of Greta Thunberg’s supporters than meets the eye.

Unlike diesel fuel which stays in the pavement for up to 3 months, PavePro 100% biodegrades out in less than 5 days.

That means that it has far less time to strip the oils in the asphalt and has no negative impact on the integrity of the mix or the pavement.

PavePro Requires Less Product For Better Results

Diesel fuel has a flash point of 130°F and PavePro has a flash point of above 400°F. Because your hot mix should be between 275°F and 325°F, the diesel fuel immediately starts to evaporate out, whereas PavePro stays on the metal of your tools and equipment for much longer. Dump trucks can get up to 4 loads of asphalt and shovels can get more than 50 shovel loads before build-up becomes noticeable.

This means that you use a significantly less amount of product, and thus less to strip the asphalt, for better results when you use PavePro over diesel fuel.

PavePro Blue Is 100% Non-Stripping

We also sell a DOT-approved, water-dilutable, and non-stripping asphalt release agent called PavePro Blue that is guaranteed to not ruin the integrity of your mix.

In a performance test conducted by NTPEP, PavePro Blue achieved the maximum amount of pulls allotted by NTPEP testers on polymer-modified binders. Blue repeatedly prevented the polymer-modified binders from sticking to a metal surface on 3 separate tests for multiple applications, outperforming all of its competition.

Asphalt plants, who won’t let you even use diesel anymore, love PavePro Blue in their spray systems. It’s incredibly powerful as an asphalt release agent and is very cost-effective.