What is the Contrast between Surface Dressing and Resurfacing?

What is Surface Dressing?

Surface dressing is a cost-effective way of restoring the highway or road in one go. Surface dressing can also help improve the road's resistance to make it safer. It can also be used to make the road waterproof. Furthermore, it can also be done to protect roads against frost and water damage.

It’s a low-cost way to make the road more reliable and risk-free for vehicles and also increases the durability of the road.

In the process of surface dressing, the road is sprayed with bitumen binder followed by a layer of stone chipping. A roller presses these stone chippings. To complete the dressing process more chipping is applied to the road than needed, after that, it is pressed to ensure a coating of emulsion. This is because before the road is open to traffic, approximately 90% of excess chipping is removed. Any loose chipping is also removed before the road opening. From the traffic department, an advisory speed limit of 15 mph is issued until they are confident that the dressing has settled down.

Mostly this type of road dressing is used between April and September when the weather is warm and dry.

What is road resurfacing?

Road resurfacing is another procedure for maintaining roads. A layer of Micro-asphalt is used in this process on the existing surface to increase road safety and durability of the road. This process is mostly used in urban areas and especially for highways. In this process, a mixture of bitumen emulsions and aggregates has used as a replacement for hot asphalt. The advantage of using that is it can be laid thinner. This material doesn’t need a spray tank with a boiler. A complete process of Asphalt preservation explained here.

In Europe, it is widely used as a preventative maintenance treatment to avoid disruption to roads by major reconstructions and is used in both urban and non-urban roads. This surface dressing can increase the road’s life with minimal disruption and expenses.

In this process, the number and depth of applications vary according to load and traffic. If the road or highway is busiest and used for heavy traffic then deep surfacing material will be needed. The benefit of using micro asphalt is that when applied is in liquid form. That quickly dries and makes the road ready for traffic within 30 minutes. Furthermore, micro asphalt coating works as waterproofing of roads. With all these characteristics the Firms like Henry and Williams will make it possible for the road to bear wear and tear and sustain for at least 10 years.