You know if you’re a regular reader of my blog that I’m a pretty technical guy, I like my software, my computers, and my tech. But every now and then something comes along that is both well out of my zero-and-one based comfort zone, but at the same time, absolutely necessary.
Let’s talk about my drive, and, no, I’m not talking about my hard drive! My driveway, that myself and my wife purchased from a local tarmacadam company several years ago, is starting to show signs of wear and tear. This was brought into sharp relief after a particularly cold frost caused fissures and a number of potholes.
Like I’ve said, I’m not really a DIY kinda dude, but pushed on by my darling wife, I felt compelled to do something about it myself, rather than get a professional in. I do admit, I was partially motivated by the price of some of these hot asphalt experts! The amount of equipment and manpower required when laying hot tar is nothing to be sniffed at!
I, rather predictably, turned online for a solution. Within a few nimble-fingered google searches, I found myself on Red Stag Materials website, which seemed to be offering a rather attractive solution. Upon first glance, I thought it was slightly too good to be true. Their product, EZ Street, is, frankly, a bag of gravel that you pour into a pothole, pat down with a shovel, and it somehow binds with the asphalt, and boom, problem solved. Too good to be true, right? WRONG! It worked like a dream! I ordered one 22KG bag, which was shipped in good time, when it arrived, I immediately set to work on my driveway. Pouring the asphalt into the hole, and -for lack of a better word- stamping it into the hole with my shovel. I know, I was skeptical too.
But to my astonishment, the EZ Street bound to the existing tar, and after a good bit of compaction, the pothole was completely fixed! The bond was so good you could barely see that there was a pothole to begin with!
The more I started to think about this miraculous product, the more it made sense to me. Not only was it almost ridiculously easy to use, but the more research I did, I found out that it is a particularly green alternative to hot tar.
While regular asphalt is created using products derived from diesel, EZ Street is created using biofuel, making it that much more sustainable, and better for our planet.
The other thing that seriously impressed me about this little product, is that it can be stored for up to 12 months, for me, this means that it can be thrown into the garage and forgotten about…until the next pothole appears, then I can wheel it out again and get the problem sorted!
I know this is a bit of a break in form from my usual style of post, but I just felt it worth noting that this product really helped me out of a tricky situation, in a pretty clever and innovative fashion.
While I’m sure my next post will be back to my standard fare of digital chat, a welcome holiday into the world of the real every once in a while never hurt!