Montana Sealcoating Season

The end of our inaugural sealcoating season is upon us and it could not have been a better learning experience. We faced numerous issues and delays that, after being solved and averted, became fantastic learning points that we will surely use in future sealcoating seasons here in Bozeman, Montana. Our projects ranged in size from a few hundred square feet to nearly one hundred and fifty thousand square feet!
I believe that one of the most important things that we learned in this first season was sealcoat mix consistency. That is, always ensuring that our mix design was correct for the job and consistent among new tank loads. In order to do this we calculated the amount of sealcoat slurry we had in the tank and then used that amount to determine a correct dilution rate of water and additives.

Sealcoating

Sealcoating, line striping and crack repair in Montana is regularly delayed by weather in the early summer months. We found that June and especially May presents numerous rain days where work cannot be completed. We are planning for next season to inform our clients that all work booked in these months will have a possibility for a weather delay. We did not have any issues with rain while we were sealcoating, as we made sure to be extra cautious about upcoming weather.

Crack Repair

Crack repair went smoothly as well. We were able to purchase two brand new propane heated banders that really increased our productivity and the overall quality of our bands that we put on the ground. These were game changers from the original pour pot-squeegee method. We took our time to research proper methods of crack repair and by doing this we stumbled upon the Billy Goat Crack Grazor. This walk behind machine has a small honda engine that powers a thin wire brush. The rotating brush works extremely well to clear out all debris and vegetation from inside the cracks, ensuring that our FAA approved crack sealant has a good surface to bond to. We did not have any call backs due to crack sealant being pulled up from the cracks or and cracks that were improperly filled. We took this as testament to research that we put in to our products and the selection of the tools we use. We also took the additional time at all Montana crack sealing and crack repair jobs to discuss the right way to go about completing the project.

Line Striping

Line striping for commercial and residential parking lots in Bozeman was also very successful. We researched our products with our local Sherwin-Williams to determine that the water-based Pro-Park paint was the superior product from all other marking paints. This is a product that has been used in the Gallatin Valley, but is not widely used due to its costs. We believed that by using a superior product put down correctly, even though it cut in to our profit as a business, will benefit us more in the future by gaining the trust and confidence of our clients.

We really enjoyed our hard working summer and look forward to many more. Crack repair, sealcoating and line striping in Bozeman Montana was an incredibly rewarding experience for Yellowstone Pavement Solutions. Through our professionalism, attention to detail and engineering-based strategies from sealcoating, line striping and crack repair we has a season that brought back numerous positive reviews and minimal rework.