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Custom Colored Porous Surfacing 06-01-15 | News

Custom Colored Porous Surfacing

Porous Pave, Inc. www.porouspaveinc.com has introduced eight custom color combinations for its pour-in-place porous surfacing.

Porous Pave, Inc., produces, in its words, "highly porous, flexible and durable pour-in-place surfacing material." Its XL surfacing product is half recycled rubber chips and half stone aggregate with a urethane binder, while its XLS surfacing is 100 percent recycled rubber chips and a more elastic urethane binder.

The standard colors for the surfacing is black, gray, tan, green brown, cypress, redwood and blue. The company is now offering custom color combinations of the standard colors: gray-black, tan-black, brown-black, cypress-black, red-black, brown-tan, green-brown, and blue-grey.???(R)???AE???(R)???U

"In the decade since we first introduced Porous Pave, landscape architects and contractors have experimented with mixing two or more of our solid, standard rubber colors," explains Dave Ouwinga, president and CEO of the company. "The custom colors offer the eight combinations proven best for harmonizing permeable paved surfaces with a variety of landscape and hardscape designs."

The surfacing begins with discarded tires, which are shredded and processed into one-quarter-inch rubber chips. Instead of coating the outer surface of the rubber with paint, which would fade, crack and flake off, the manufacturer's method is to infuse the chips with dyes and UV inhibitors.

The engineered surfacing spec notes a 29 percent void space that allows water to permeate and filter down through a compacted aggregate base, then slowly seep into the soil below, thus reducing erosion from runoff, and slowing the velocity of peak runoff into storm drains and storm sewers. The company reports independent testing that verifies up to 6,300 gph per square foot can drain though the surfacing.

The surfacing is used on driveways, parking areas, building entrances, patios, terraces, courtyards, walkways, sidewalks, trails, golf cart paths and even loading docks. The surfacing is also being used for pool surrounds, and schools and parks are installing the 100 percent rubber chips product for playgrounds and splash pads (for its slip resistance). The surfacing can be installed on grades up to 30 degrees.

Rubber recycled from 300 tires creates a two-inch thick surfacing covering 1,000 square feet. To visualize that, half of a single's tennis court (27'x39') is 1,053 sq. ft. Using a standard mortar mixer, mixing time is under a minute, and curing time is 24 hours.