Whether you’re maintaining a county road, building an oil and gas pad, or stabilizing soil for another project, putting in the right prep work for your Perma-Zyme application will help you get the best, lowest maintenance results. In this blog, we’ll break down eight ways to make your application a success:
Checking the weather is the easiest way to help your Perma-Zyme application go well. Specifically, look for rain and temperature.
Perma-Zyme requires 72 hours to cure. Rain during that time can keep soil from hardening or undo compaction, leaving soil loose and still prone to erosion. We recommend applying Perma-Zyme when there will be no rain for at least 72 hours afterward, so it can harden at full compaction.
On the upside, a little rain before application can help. Most customers must water their soil to help it compact thoroughly, so rain beforehand pre-soaks the soil, saving you time and money on water hauling. Just make sure conditions aren’t too wet, since muddy soil can’t compact. You can check your soil’s moisture with a simple hand test.
Temperature matters just as much for your application as rainfall. The enzymes in Perma-Zyme work best at temperatures between 40°F and 115°F. Hotter temps can denature the enzymes, rendering them ineffective. Colder temps can slow them down, so your soil may not cure completely—or at all.
Now, some customers have done autumn applications when the temperature was above 40°F during the day and below 40°F at night. That’s okay as long as the soil doesn’t freeze. When soil freezes, the water in it expands. That can loosen the compaction and weaken the soil. That’s why we recommend applying Perma-Zyme when both the daytime and nighttime air temperatures will be above 40°F whenever possible.
Weather can be unpredictable, even with the best meteorology. If the forecast changes before you start your application, you can reschedule. If the weather sours after your application, that’s okay. Perma-Zyme is a durable, forgiving product! In most cases, you can resolve any issues by recompacting the soil and giving it a few extra days to cure.
Have questions about the weather and your application? Call your Substrata rep, and they’ll help you out.
We recommend applying Perma-Zyme with standard construction equipment:
But if you don’t have all that equipment handy, you can apply Perma-Zyme with the equipment you do have. The key is to consider how any substitutions may affect the application and plan accordingly. Are you using an asphalt zipper instead of a grader? You’ll need to allow some extra time since zipper speeds measure in feet per hour, instead of miles per hour. Are you wheelpacking with dump trucks instead of compacting with a roller? That takes longer, too—those truck tires are a lot narrower than a roller drum.
Your Substrata rep can help you set a timeline for your application based on your equipment and project size. They can also give you tips to make the most of the machines you have on-hand.
Note: Check your equipment before you begin applying Perma-Zyme so you can spot any potential maintenance issues and avoid breakdowns onsite.
Most soils work great with Perma-Zyme! Each one works a little differently based on its composition: clay is easier to compact than silt, gravel is stronger than clay, sand is more likely to shift than gravel, and so on.
These variations in soil type and behavior won’t impact most applications. But when you have a large, expensive project or you’re working in environmentally sensitive areas, the stakes are higher. Then, it’s good to know how your soil will react to Perma-Zyme so you can spot potential issues, choose amendments to boost your soil’s performance, and plan your application to make the most of every penny you’ve spent.
With our complimentary soil evaluation, we’ll check your soil type and even treat a sample with Perma-Zyme. Then, you’ll get a full report and recommendations to help your soil perform its best, all at no cost to you.
Most customers can apply Perma-Zyme without a soil evaluation. We typically only recommend them for large projects (over three miles or nine acres in size) or those with special environmental considerations such as sensitive ecosystems nearby. Even then, an evaluation is optional. You get to decide what works for you!
Soil evaluations are only available to U.S.-based public and commercial customers due to importation laws and high demand. International customers and U.S. homeowners can request a handy at-home soil evaluation kit, which is also free of charge.
During an onsite consultation, a Substrata rep will come to your jobsite on application day and provide real-time guidance on things like:
Onsite consultations do cost extra, and customers who do them say it’s worth it. They get immediate, live feedback while they work—no guessing, just answers. The money they save on maintenance after using Perma-Zyme more than covers the cost of the onsite and application.
Perma-Zyme customers tend to work in industries that get stereotyped as gruff and tough. But in reality, they’re the most caring people we’ve ever met. Many current customers are happy to talk about why they decided to try Perma-Zyme and how they applied it. Some of them even volunteer for others to reach out and visit their roads!
Your Substrata rep can help you connect with Perma-Zyme users who may have projects nearby or who may have similar soil, specs, environmental conditions, and so forth. You may even be able to visit one of their treated roads so you can see the difference Perma-Zyme made.
What's better than talking to someone? Watching them apply Perma-Zyme!
Observing is a great way for you to see and feel soil at every step of the process. So, you can see soil that’s ripped to the right depth or that has reached optimum moisture. It's also useful to see the product up close, so you can learn what to do—or maybe what not to do. (Some counties learned to keep their water truck mixer on low speed when they saw Perma-Zyme foam out of another county’s truck!) Additionally, some customers form partnerships with each other to help offset the costs of applying Perma-Zyme.
Counties and townships have been especially great about letting other customers observe their applications. In 2025, guests from three neighboring counties and a paving company watched an application in Knox County, Indiana. And Fayette County, Georgia’s application drew an even bigger crowd, with 12 counties and two paving companies present.
The folks who talk to us and order Perma-Zyme know how it will solve their soil problems. But that information often doesn’t make its way to the equipment operators out in the field. When we talk to operators, they often ask, “What is this stuff?” or, “What does this do again?” They don’t know where to start because they don’t even know what Perma-Zyme is.
That’s not a big confidence booster—for them or you! Using an unfamiliar product can be intimidating for operators. They want to do a good job installing the product so they don’t waste time or money. But if they don’t know anything about it, how can they succeed?
You stand to benefit when the people who will be putting Perma-Zyme into the ground know what it is and how it works. As the expert, you’ll have to teach them about the product and how to apply it. One way to help things “click” is to tell operators how applying Perma-Zyme compares to their regular maintenance routine. Most blade hands relax when we say, “Once Perma-Zyme is in the ground, just grade it like normal.” Hearing that, they’re immediately more confident and know just what to do.
This is another reason onsite consultations benefit your crew: our team can talk to the operators about Perma-Zyme and guide them through the application. Well-trained operators can work faster with fewer mistakes, saving you time and money.
Applying Perma-Zyme is simple:
With so few steps, it’s essential for you to follow the process. Moving on too quickly can have a negative effect on your application—especially if you stop compaction too soon.
Compaction is the core of your Perma-Zyme application. It pushes the soil particles tightly together so they can form the strongest possible bond. The stronger the bond, the better your results will be. Take your time, and make sure your soil reaches full compaction. You can tell it’s done when small rocks begin to break under the roller, instead of pushing into the soil’s surface.
To help you with compaction (and the rest of your application), just ask your Substrata rep for more resources about applying Perma-Zyme. They can send you helpful things like blogs, training videos, and the Step-by-Step Guide to Applying Perma-Zyme. Our friends in Washington County, Utah, even printed out the guide and brought it to their jobsite so they knew exactly what to do!
You can’t control everything that happens on the jobsite. Weather conditions, machine breakdowns, and other last-minute issues can all crop up during your application. But, when you take command of these eight areas, you’ll get better results that last longer with less maintenance!