INDUSTRY NEWS
Soft Heat Manufacturing’s innovative
approach is cooking up change
W
hen Ted Price needed a “game
changer,” he knew exactly
where to turn.
Ted had recently purchased
Diamond Pavement Maintenance Solu-
tions, a once successful residential seal-
coating company he’d been working for
since graduating from college. After just
a few seasons under his employer’s own-
ership the company was floundering,
but Ted could see that it wasn’t due to a
lack of potential.
“I was shocked by the inefficiencies of
the processes used, as well as major as-
pects of each job that we were not able
to handle in-house,” said Ted. “We were
hiring paving companies to do small
repairs for ridiculous prices or settling
for poor results by burning up asphalt
for hours with torches. Our market was
begging for a solution.”
That’s where Ted’s dad, David, pro-
vided the game-changing innovation he
www.callape.com
needed: the AR55, a portable reclaimer
that uses revolutionary infra-red heat-
ing technology capable of getting 200
pounds of new or recycled asphalt ready
to use in just minutes. Even better, the
torch-less heat source did this without
burning the product. This meant the re-
pairs would last and their reputation for
quality work would return.
“This was a total game changer”, said
Ted. “ Our average gross per job rose by
$300 with only 15 minutes of addition-
al labor time. I seemed to get every job I
bid.”
The AR55 worked so well that the
pair decided to share their product with
the rest of the industry, and Soft Heat
Manufacturing was founded in January
2019.
Fresh-baked improvements
The AR55 -- or “Cookie Box,” as
David affectionately calls it -- utilizes
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stockpiled asphalt often left over from
larger jobs, which eliminates wasteful
dumping and man hours. Painstakingly
designed for ruggedness and simplicity,
the portable AR55 is also capable of
reclaiming pieces of asphalt removed
from broken surfaces.
Using asphalt purchased from a plant?
No problem – Soft Heat offers 1.1-ton
hotbox configuration built from a sec-
ond AR55 set side by side that fits in
any full-size pickup truck.
David has even developed a handy,
labor-saving Cookie Shovel to shuttle
asphalt or RAP to and from the box. It
also doubles as a mold to shape the as-
phalt into easily stored “cookies.”
Soft Heat has recently taken their in-
novative approach a step further by of-
fering an equally revolutionary in-place
unit, the SH-24x48 IR Recycler. The
new offering produces seamless 2-foot by
4-foot welded patches -- in just minutes.
1.800.210.5923