When it comes to tar & chipping surface dressings, size matters.
By that we mean chipping size.
This is especially important when it comes to bicycle riders, who often ride with tyres as narrow as 21millimetres.
Let’s take a look at a tale of two road surfaces, both recently applied on the R730 between Beechdale and Kiltealy.
The above image is from a section of the R730. There are fistfuls of non bedded in, large chippings on the roadside here. This causes the isolation of individual sharp chippings and results in a really bumpy surface prone to causing bicycle tyre damage.
The above image is in total contrast. This is also a recently dressed surface on the same road near Kiltealy. There wasn’t fistfuls of chippings on the road side as most had bedded in. These are a smaller chipping.
When it comes to tar & chip dressings – size matters. The larger chipping should not be applied to our roads as they are not suitable for this final dressing.
This is a subject matter that WexBUG brought to the council at our last meeting. We brought in these samples (pictured below) from our Wexford roads for comparison purposes.
We were told that they would endeavour not to use them in the future. Unfortunately this hasn’t held true. It will be a topic on the agenda when we meet again.
