Most soils work great with Perma-Zyme, and they each work a little differently based on their composition. So, we offer free evaluations to help you see how your soil will react to Perma-Zyme before you buy. You’ll also get custom recommendations to help your soil perform its best.
In this blog, we’ll take you behind-the-scenes to show you how we evaluate your soil. Then, we’ll share who’s eligible and when you should get an evaluation.
Our soil evaluations consist of three trials:
A sieve analysis checks your soil’s gradation—in other words, what percent of your soil’s grains are what size. Every soil type has different sized grains, so this analysis tells us what types (and how much of them) you have. With that information, we can better predict how your soil will work with Perma-Zyme.
We use five sieves, which are round metal pans with mesh bottoms. Each sieve has different sized openings in the mesh. Our lab techs stack them from largest to smallest mesh in a machine called a sieve shaker. On the bottom of the stack, they place a collector pan with a solid bottom.
Next, they add soil to the top sieve. The sieve shaker vibrates vigorously, so smaller soil grains fall onto the lower sieves. Fine soil passes through all the sieves and into the collector pan. By weighing the soil that each sieve catches, we can identify what percentage of the soil is what size.
Coarse material like gravel or sand makes Perma-Zyme treated soil strong enough to support traffic’s weight. Usually, soil needs at least 20% coarse material to achieve adequate strength.
We also look for fine matter, which is silt or clay. These soils have tiny grains that fill gaps between larger particles to prevent water or air pockets that could weaken your project. We especially like to find clay in your soil because it reacts well with Perma-Zyme and binds tightly together, whereas silt struggles to bind.
Both silt and clay can pass through the smallest sieve we use, the #200. So, while the sieve analysis tells us that your soil contains fine matter, it doesn’t tell us which kind. To figure that out, we run an Atterberg limits test.
The Atterberg limits test checks fine soil’s plasticity, which is its ability to retain water. Soil must contain the right amount of water (aka optimum moisture) to compact well. Since Perma-Zyme needs good compaction to create strong surfaces, we need to know how much water soil can gain or lose before it becomes too wet or too dry to compact. This range of moisture is the plasticity index (PI).
First, we wet the soil until its consistency resembles peanut butter. Then, we place the mixture into a cup on an Atterberg testing device. The device strikes the cup until the soil collapses. When it does, the soil has reached its liquid limit—when it’s too wet to compact.
Next, we spread a moist soil sample onto a glass plate. We then roll the soil into a ribbon three millimeters thick. Plastic soil can take this shape. But when the soil is too dry, it reaches its plastic limit and breaks.
Finally, we calculate the soil’s PI using this equation: Plastic Limit - Liquid Limit = PI.
Silt and clay have different PIs. A higher PI indicates more clay, while a lower PI indicates more silt. We generally look for a PI of 7 to 15 because that’s when soil contains enough clay to compact thoroughly, yet not so much as to become weak or crumbly.
The best way to know how your soil works with Perma-Zyme is to try it! Treating a sample of your soil in our lab gives you a low-risk way to make sure you’re happy with the results. Additionally, some minerals that work well with Perma-Zyme—like limestone and decomposed granite—won’t show up on a sieve analysis or Atterberg limits test. The Perma-Zyme treatment lets us know they’re present.
This is the simplest part of our soil evaluation. We mix a handful of your soil with Perma-Zyme and water until it reaches optimum moisture. Then, we shape it to resemble a hockey puck and let it dry. Once it does, we try to break the puck to test its strength.
The puck should be extremely hard. And it should not be easy to break—although our lab crew has fun trying! Soil that survives our break tests in the lab should achieve sufficient strength on the jobsite, too.
Great question! Most soils work well with Perma-Zyme. They have plenty of coarse material, a good PI, and other minerals to bind them together. Your soil will most likely fit into this camp. If it doesn’t, that’s okay! You can still use Perma-Zyme. You’ll just need to add some amendments.
For example, rocky soil may not react to the enzymes in Perma-Zyme, so you can import clay that will. Or if your soil’s plasticity is too high (indicating a weak soil with too much clay), you can add gravel for strength.
Your Substrata rep will be there every step of the way to help you choose the amendments that will work best with your soil and budget. Speaking of budgets, customers who use soil amendments get the same lasting, low-maintenance results as everyone else—making the long-term savings worth the upfront cost.
We’d love to evaluate soil for every customer. That said, we do have two limitations:
We’ve got your back. Just contact us and ask for an at-home soil evaluation kit. We’ll send you a free, simple tool you can use to check your soil on your own. That way, you’ll have a better idea how it will react with Perma-Zyme. And we’ll still be here to discuss your results and answer any questions you may have.
Soil evaluations are optional. In fact, most customers have applied Perma-Zyme without one, and they’ve had incredible success! But sometimes, having extra information about your soil can help you make the most of Perma-Zyme and your budget.
We most often recommend performing a soil evaluation for:
The bigger your project, the more money you’re spending to stabilize your soil. So, it’s smart to make sure the stabilizer will work the way you want it to before you apply it. We recommend a soil evaluation for projects with at least three miles of road or at least nine acres in size, such as oil and gas pads.
Environmental concerns can include things like your soil type, how you want to apply the product, or topographical features that make construction difficult (hello, mountains and swamps). Soil evaluations can’t level the landscape, but they can level the playing field. You’ll be able to use the information from your evaluation to help your soil perform its best with Perma-Zyme, even in a tough environment.
Here’s a great example: an extraction company wanted to try Perma-Zyme for dust control, but they weren’t sure if they should apply it topically or mix it into the soil. They decided to do several test projects to find out—but first, they evaluated their soil to make sure no unusual soil types would skew their test results.
We do our best to make the #200 Finder Soil Evaluation easy for our customers. Here’s how it works:
That’s all there is to it! With your complimentary evaluation, you can move forward with confidence that Perma-Zyme will work on your soil.