Asphalt

Hot asphalt usually goes year round but it depends on what part of the country you're in. They don't pave in winter except in the areas that the road temperature is above 60° if I'm not mistaken. If the company hauls another product or type of freight I would imagine they would allow you to switch until the hot oil gets going.

 

A few years ago I was talking to the distributor truck driver on a chip sealing job I was on. He told me that in the winter they take the distributor bar setup off the back and they keep moving oil around. And paving season here is pretty much May through October.

 

I've been hauling asphalt for about five years now, and tankers in general for about 20 years. For my personal preferences tankers are the only way to go. Never had to hire a lumper to unload a tanker. I've done foodgrade liquid for a few years, several years doing bulk pneumatic, and the last few years hauling petroleum-based products. Was trained once on gasoline and never did get into it because it was just too much rigmarole. In the summer I do asphalt, up north here that's the money making time. We do haul some in the winter to keep the tanks filled for next seasons run. Depending on the company you can usually find other things to do during the off-season. Hauling biodiesel, ethanol, or even sand and gravel. A lot of guys just sit home and draw unemployment. Most of my friends that are doing it prefer to keep going so we haul stuff like fuel oil, or even propane, anhydrous, or even fuel. An ambitious driver can make upwards of $50-$75,000 per year. Every company's different. Some are carriers hauling for customers and others are road construction companies that are hauling for themselves. As other posters have said it depends on where you're at, up here in the great North the season usually dies out around the middle of November. Then after a brief lull we then haul the winter fill. If you can get to a large enough tanker operation that has multiple divisions you can usually keep running pretty good all year round. You have to remember to that with asphalt hauling you sometimes take the roads less traveled. Some of them can be downright interesting. Not a whole lot of physical labor involved either. In the winter it can be quite challenging as asphalt gets weird when it gets cold and it doesn't want to cooperate. Some hauls you do very little work at all, the load point loads you and at the upload spot your sometimes not even required to help them hook up. As far as I'm concerned it's a good gig. One thing to remember don't wear you're good clothes to work.

 

What do you wear for ppe when unloading asphalt? Or is it like the chemical world where most of us dont bother wearing anything

 

It varies where you unload at. At the load out points you are required to wear a long sleeve, preferably cotton, shirt, long pants, boots, in some places they must be steel toed, a hardhat with protective glasses and a face shield. You also must have the appropriate gloves and that most of the loadout's you have to have an HS 2 monitor. At the unload pits they really don't pay much attention though some require you to wear a reflective vest. A few make you wear the hardhats. If you're going to another asphalt plant they make you wear the full gear. Some places we pick up at also require you to be beard free. No excessive facial hair. We carry everything we could possibly be asked to wear with us just in case.

 

I use to haul asphalt in the spring, summer and fall and use the same trailers to haul #4 and #6 oil in the winter and some occasional loads in the warm seasons. Not to many places burn that any more but there are still a few mills around that do.

 

Up here in my area we still burn quite a bit of "burner oil" or in the case of the stuff we haul to the Great Lakes ships "bunker oil". I've hauled lot of it into hot mix plants, dairies, and manufacturing facilities. We use the same asphalt trailers to haul burner oil but a lot of our blending plants won't load us if we've had burner oil as the previous load. The same goes if we haul products like cutback (MC 3000) which is a blend of asphalt and jet fuel, kerosene, or fuel oil. Most of the places we load at are very strict on what we have previously hauled. For example you cannot haul hot oil on top of emulsion. Otherwise you can haul all kinds of stuff in asphalt trailers.