When It Comes To Weather, Native Matters

The sprawling limestone deposit we mine down in southwest Texas may be one of the largest natural asphalt formations in the world, but it’s certainly not large enough to pave all 42.1 million miles of roads on Earth. That’s one reason why when most people think asphalt, it’s manufactured, not native asphalt that comes to mind. In other words, people imagine a tarry black substance — one created from distilled crude oil and rocks — not our naturally-occurring asphalt composed entirely of dry-to-the-touch rocks. And if you’re looking for a patch that performs in all weather, that difference matters.

Uncertain Weather,
Uncertain Results

In manufactured asphalts, only the outer surfaces of the rocks are coated in a sticky binder. That’s one reason manufactured cold mixes become either unreliable or unworkable outside a narrow range of weather conditions. (That’s also why they tend to dry out so quickly.) Because manufactured mixes depend on fickle chemical reactions to bond, unexpected changes in ambient moisture or temperature often disrupt the stability of the material. This can even occur long after the patch is initially applied. 

Why Native Asphalt Out-Performs

Over the past 70 million years, heat and pressure have forced concentrated bitumen to seep deep inside the rocks in our asphalt. That’s one reason weather conditions don’t affect RoadRescue^® the way they do manufactured patches: the binder in our material is trapped in the interstices of the rocks themselves, not coated on afterwards. And it’s pressure — not evaporation or any other weather sensitive chemical reaction — that causes RoadRescue^® to bond. Long story short, that’s why our native asphalt patch remains workable and reliable in snow, heat, and rain — while manufactured mixes simply don’t.