With the recent purchase of a new Blaw-Knox PF-2181 paver, Totin Contracting Inc., Sharpsville, PA, has come full circle. When the company began paving hot mix asphalt about 15 years ago, the first machine they bought was a small paving box that was towed behind a truck. Then, as they grew and the workload increased, the company’s next two pavers were Blaw-Knox machines.
Totin has a PF-120H and a PF-172 consecutively. Each unit has a 10 ft. (3 m) screed and performed well for the company. “We put a whole lot of asphalt through them and made money doing it,” said Michael Totin, owner, Totin Contracting. Of course some of the credit for that has to go to the crew. Many of our men on the paving crew today have 10 or more year’s experience with us. They are good and they know the territory where we work. Combine that with a dependable paver and you have the formula for success.
“With the PF-2181 we have an even better opportunity to improve our bottom line. The new machine, with its 8 ft. wide OmniScreed IA, is legal to move over the road without a permit in Pennsylvania. We can move it any time we want easier, faster, and more often. That allows us the mobility to do more jobs. We can do several small jobs now in a single day. That translates into more income for us,” continued Totin.
Mike Totin and a partner, who was bought out after the first 10 years, founded the company more than 20 years ago. Now headquartered in a new facility in Sharpsville, PA, they have a 6,000-sq.-ft. shop and 1,200 sq. ft. of planning and office space.
Totin Contracting is a full service contractor specializing in earth work and asphalt paving. For the portion of the business, which makes up about 40-50 percent of their work, the company tries to stay within about a 75-mi. radius.
About 60 percent of the work Totin does is in the public sector, which includes state highways, municipal roads and streets and institutional proJects. The remaining 40 percent is in the private sector and includes paving new subdivision roads and streets for developers, large and small parking lots, and industrial sites.
Typical of the institutional work done by Totin would be two rather large parking lot rehabilitation and resurfacing contracts at schools in Mercer and Grove City, PA. Each of these was a two-tier project that called for base and binder. At the Mercer project, Totin also did the earthwork to expand the parking lot to about double its original size. Once that was done they had about 126,000 sq. ft. (11,705 sq. m) to pave. This required a total of about 7,000 tons 6,300 t) of PDOT Type ID-2 binder and surface I asphalt. The crew was paving about 12 ft. (3.6 m) wide most of the time, and compacted the mat to 1.5 in. (3.8 cm). Two Ingersoll- Rand rollers were used to compact the asphalt.
The project at the Grove City high school included about 24,503 sq. yds. (2,205 sq. m) of binder and wearing course and was worth about $513,000.
“One of the many features that we really like on the new Blaw-Knox PF-2181 is its improved turning radius. It’s much better than our older pavers. That is especially handy in large parking lots like the schools and shopping centers where there generally are traffic dividers with a tight turning radius needed,” said Totin.
“With the competitiveness of the bidding process today and the changing paving technologies, it is very important for us to have every advantage that we can. This includes the latest in proven paver technology. We’ve already owned Blaw-Knox pavers and know firsthand their reputation for dependability and reliability.
(The preceding article appears courtesy of Blaw-Knox.)
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