ForConstructionPros.com

Rick Royals bought a milling machine almost because he had to. The co-owner of Royals Contracting, a Raleigh, NC, paving, milling, and patching company, had bid a 4-inch-thick patching job in 2002, planning on doing the work with a pavement saw, a backhoe, and a 12-person crew.

Royals' crew began the job and for the first three nights generated $1,235 of income a night—at a cost of $3,240 a night, resulting in a loss of more than $2,000 a night. That was quickly followed by a letter for damages charging them an additional $2,000 a day for slow progress. As Royals says today, "A decision had to me made."

So Royals Contracting did some research and learned what a lot of paving and pavement maintenance contractors are learning: that pavement milling, which until a few years ago might have been out of reach of the small and mid-sized contractor, is now an accessible service option.

Partly that's a result of milling becoming commonplace on large and small paving jobs across the country, but it's also the result of manufacturers producing a broad range of milling equipment. Contractors of virtually any size can enter the milling market at just about any level they choose; the key is determining what that level is and what your market needs.

And there are different ways of getting in the milling business. Royals Contracting and Reid Paving, Gilbertsville, PA, took one route; Fonseca & McElroy Grinding, Santa Clara, CA, took an entirely different approach. The three contractors work in distinctly different areas of the country, and they approach the milling business from completely different aspects. Royals Contracting and Reid Paving are standard paving and pavement maintenance businesses that after subcontracting milling work and renting milling machines decided to buy the equipment and incorporate milling into their own services. FMG, on the other hand, runs a pavement milling business, owns 11 milling machines, and works as a subcontractor to a variety of paving and general contractors.