Tar and Chip Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh

Tar and Chip Green Bay, Appleton, Green Bay

Get-It-Done does Tar and Chip in Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh. Tar and Chip, also known as Chipseal is a real hot fluffy tar which is sprayed down. Whenever you spray it down, the tar will flash. And whenever it flashes, it rises up and gets fluffier. Then we put a small aggregate such as Pea Gravel over the top. The Pea Gravel sinks down and embeds into the tar. Once the tar dries, it hardens, and you are left with somewhat of an asphalt finish. But it is real thin. It doesn’t go on thick. Some people who ask me how thick it goes, expect me to tell them something close to three inches like asphalt. But one layer of chip seal is only a quarter or half of an inch thick.

Tar and Chip works different then Blacktop. Tar and Chip is so thin that it works off the base and whatever the base will hold. Let’s take my parking lot for example. It has much gravel. It is a good hard base. If I put Tar and Chip over that, even though only half an inch thick, you can still drive all those dump trucks and equipment over it. It will be fine, because the base underneath is good. If I would have soft base instead and drive over it with a truck you can watch the ground roll or move. You could put 10 layers of Tar and Chip over that and it would still break and crack.

When to Chipseal?

A lot depends on what base we would have to go over. We have people with long driveways call us who want Chipseal. As we go out there we learn that the rock they already have down is too big. We can’t Chipseal over the top of that. It has to be the right application. A lot of people with longer driveways of a quarter, half, or a mile long, don’t want to spend the money for blacktop. Then Tar and Chip is the right alternative. You get somewhat of a nice, clean, hard surface without having to spend as much. It is a lot cheaper then Blacktop. But it doesn’t last as long and you don’t get the same surface. Hot Blacktop is smooth whereas Chipseal looks like a gravel driveway or parking lot as soon as you are done. There also remains a lot of loose rock on top.

They do a lot of county roads with Chipseal. After the blacktop gets older they will Tar and Chip the road instead of repaving it with a new layer of blacktop. We’ll do the same also. Not so much on driveways because if people already have a blacktop driveway they won’t want Tar and Chip because of the loose rock. Whenever you Chipseal there is loose rock. But something that we do with Tar and Chip are parking lots or real long driveways. But there will be loose rock on top for a while until it wears in.

How to Chipseal?

First we spray the hot tar down. Then we come over top and sprinkle the loose rock. To cover all the tar we put extra rock down. Only some of that rock will embed in the tar. The excess rock we have to either leave or come back to sweep it off.

Chipseal does not produce the same surface as hot blacktop. We can do commercial parking lots with Tar and Chip but when we chip seal a parking lot, it is mostly because the asphalt is old and in bad shape and a seal coat isn’t going to do it any good anymore. So rather than waste the money on a seal coat or repaving the whole thing, you can tar and chip it. You basically add a thin layer of material down to fill the cracks.