Charlestown Paving Company is a contractor that prefers to cater to the private sector when rendering its services. The Devault, Penn.-based company is a full-service paving and excavating contractor with an emphasis on new asphalt paving and asphalt repaving projects. To that end, the company offers turnkey paving services, including all paving site prep work, necessary excavation work, profiling and milling the existing pavement and, when required, completely removing the old paving.

Milling a pavement prior to repaving is generally more cost effective than removing it entirely. Nevertheless, conditions exist when its complete removal is necessary, such as when the sub-grade material is improper or inadequate for the paving surface being applied.

Fortunately, most repaving projects do not require such drastic preparation measures, but plenty require milling some areas of the pavement, if not all of it. As for the paving company, its leaders must decide if they want to take contracts that include milling as well as the repaving work. Many contractors would like the work, but do not own the equipment necessary to mill the existing pavement. Without a cold planer milling machine in the contractor’s fleet, the only alternative to perform the work is to contract with a third party who does own one.

Charlestown Paving recently purchased a cold planer milling machine to expand its services to offer milling in-house. The company initially entered the milling business by subbing out the work to small milling contractors, but made the decision to purchase a milling machine after encountering numerous problems with sub-contractors, according to Bill Pommerer, paving and paving-prep specialist for Charlestown Paving.