Hi,
Occasionally I need to set a steel #5 reinforcing rod and aluminum disk in asphalt pavement. Lately I have been using a plumber torch to heat the asphalt combined with a hammer drill. I set the disk flush with the asphalt pavement and secure it with mortar. It seems to work, however I was wondering if there was a better way some of you might use.
For what you're setting, I can't think of a way to better the level of care that you are taking to set this. Most would just take a BFH and hammer that dude down. Should last a long time until they decide to mill up the asphalt!
Call me negligent if you so desire, but, I do not support the setting of caps in such locations, regardless of the call for such in your Minimum Standards. I rarely find caps on so-called capped bars in such locations unless they have been set two or more inches deep in asphalt, such that the next guy has to dig out the asphalt to get to them. On gravel roads, that depth normally must have been up to four inches deep. Much less than that to the surface will eventually lead to a bent bar with no cap in sight. This is especially common when the bar is set closer to the edge of the traveled way than the center.
My experience is different. I find aluminum capped monuments in asphalt very reliably. Granted, they are only allowed in low volume roads around here - local subdivision streets and so on. They do get worn smooth before very long. Ten years and no stamping can be read, twenty and the punch mark is gone.
Just yesterday I found 4 iron rods with plastic caps - all that I looked for- that had been set in asphalt in 1980. One cap was intact but smoothed over. Two others where punched through. And the forth cap was missing, leaving only the bar.
In high volume roads we are required to place monuments within monument wells.
I certainly agree with setting monuments at some depth when in a gravel road, no matter what form of capping might be used.
The only place I would refrain from using an aluminum cap is near the ocean. The salt air corrodes them alarmingly quickly.
I'd probably go with cold patch rather than mortar. If well packed cold patch will be as strong as the surrounding asphalt. Probably cheaper and easier to mix and pack around as well.
How does heating the asphalt with a torch work on old asphalt? Or is that not a concern?
We don't heat them, we just drill, works well. We do fill around the cap with motar. Some are almost 30 years on and still readable.
Hi, and thank you everyone. The point we are setting is in a driveway. I have tried setting one in a road. It wasn't a high traffic volume road.
I may be a little OCD, but when setting monuments in AC I use a core drill on my rotor-hammer. Actually, I drill a 1/2" hole through the AC then counter sink it with the core drill. The cap sets down a couple of hundredths below the AC and backfilled with tar. I then use an 1/8" drill to mark the punch. It does not take any more time than beating them into submission. There are a couple near my house I set a decade or so ago. It drives my wife crazy when I point out how pristine they still look after whining about the substandard ones that are smooth at best and usually missing the cap.
