ForConstructionPros.com

The benefits of cracksealing are beginning to spread, just as quickly as the cracks in an unkempt 7-year-old parking lot. According to Mark Manning, vice president of Crafco, cracksealing and crackfilling is finally getting the attention and respect it deserves from the pavement maintenance world.

"State agencies, cities, counties, and consulting engineers have accepted the procedure of crack and joint sealing much, much more than five years ago," he says. "They accept it as a first line of defense in the pavement preservation battle."

Just as attitudes toward cracksealing have changed, so has the equipment used to apply it. Although manufacturers have changed little in the basic design of oil-jacketed and direct-fire machines in recent years, they have added and improved a host of features to increase efficiency, ease of use, and safety.

Safety and operator comfort

Safety and operator comfort is a driving force in cracksealing equipment. Manufacturers have designed their machines with a range of ergonomic features, such as a loading door designed so that a worker of average height never has to lift blocks of sealer above chest high, a door that has a splash guard to keep hot sealant from splashing on a worker while loading blocks of sealant into the tank, and wands designed to prevent hot sealant from leaking out if dropped or bumped. Many of these features are developed through ideas from a wide range of sources.

"We continually solicit feedback from our customers on the performance of our equipment from an ergonomic perspective as well as productivity, reliability, serviceability, and safety," says Vic Ujihara of Marathon Equipment Inc.