Slurry Seal History

This type of road maintenance began in Germany with a product called Schlämme, a cold process mixture.  The consistency of the mixture was fluid; this made it easy to spread with brooms, squeegees and spreader boxes.  The first “wet-mix-process” was completed on the Berlin-Staaken Airport in 1936.  U.S. experiments began in 1938, though the extensive interest in slurry seal began in the early 1960’s when emulsifiers were part of the mixture.

California began using slurry seal in the late 1930’s to early 1940’s.  The machines were simply tanks with agitators designed for batch mixing and applying the materials. 

In the late 1940’s, the slurry seal equipment started to become more pronounced in road maintenance.  However, it was not until 1955 that a machine was built to enhance the credibility of the product. 

With the advent of the truck mounted paver and the development of quicker setting cationic emulsions, slurry seal as a product experienced rapid change and growth in the early 1960’s.  By the mid to late 1960’s, the slurry seal industry grew steadily in the U.S., Europe and other parts of the world.