Delta Mist Life Cycle Cost Analysis

Without Delta Mist

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20-yr cost, today's $

With Delta Mist

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20-yr cost, today's $

Savings

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Savings per SY

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CO₂e Avoided

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How the comparison works

ABaseline. The conventional maintenance program: crack sealing, microsurfacing, and a mill-and-overlay, each performed on its standard schedule.
BWith Delta Mist. The same roadway with low-cost Delta Mist treatments applied early. By preserving pavement condition, they defer the most costly rehabilitation — in many cases beyond the analysis period.
=Result. All costs are discounted to present value, so spending is compared on an equal footing regardless of when it occurs. The life-cycle savings equal Scenario A's total less Scenario B's.

Methodology — discounting, remaining service life, and exclusions

Each treatment is treated as a cash outlay in the year it occurs, discounted at a real rate (inflation is excluded on both sides). A remaining-service-life (RSL) credit refunds the unused portion of the final major treatment at the end of the analysis period, so neither scenario is penalized for where its cycle happens to end (NCAT 19-03, Eq. 2). Delta Mist is modeled as a deferral program, not a replacement product. Excluded by design: user costs (delays and detours, addressed separately in the Community Benefits module), agency overhead, inflation, and structural-layer RSL. NCAT's 10% significance rule is applied in the Results section.

Step 1Describe your street or lot & money assumptions

Typical values are pre-entered with sources — replace them with your agency's own.

Analysis period (years)

NCAT SHA range: 25–50 yrs

Guidance & typical values

Pick a window long enough that each alternative's big rehabilitation lands inside it — otherwise a deferral strategy is invisible. Typical: 25–50 years. Current default: 20 per sponsor direction (7/20/2026) — note NCAT's typical range starts at 25, and short windows generally undersell deferral strategies; the RSL credit compensates by refunding unused life at the horizon.
NCAT 19-03 (SHA range 25–50 yr) FHWA: ≥35 yr recommended

Discount rate, real (%/yr)

Guidance & typical values

How much less a future dollar is worth than one today, net of inflation. Typical SHA practice: 3–5% (most commonly ~4%; OMB Circular A-94 publishes federal real rates annually). Default: 3% per sponsor direction, mid-range of NCAT Table 8. Test 2–5% in the sensitivity chart below.
NCAT 19-03 Table 8 OMB Circular A-94

Pavement type

Street or parking lot — the math is area-based either way.

Project size (square yards of pavement)

Guidance

Total paved area of the street, parking lot, or program bundle. For a street, a 12-ft lane is 7,040 SY per lane-mile (a 24-ft residential street ≈ 14,080 SY per centerline mile). For a parking lot, just enter the total paved area — 1 acre = 4,840 SY, so there's no length to assume. Size scales results linearly, and per-SY figures are shown throughout so results transfer to any project.
Default 10,000 SY — placeholder pending segment selection

Step 2Unit prices ($/SY, curb-to-curb)

Pick a preset to pre-fill standardized prices, then overwrite any cell with your local bid pricing.

Price preset:

Treatment	$/SY	Source / note

Delta Mist pricing. Driven Plastics uses $2.00/SY as an average price in Colorado; for larger projects the price can be much less. Replace it with your project's quoted price — the sensitivity chart below shows how much it matters.

Want project-specific pricing? Schedule a meeting

About these presets

Standard (default): Lexington's own pavement-management engineer's 11/26/2025 updated pricing (ManageMyRoads) — curb-to-curb only, excludes drainage/sidewalk/ADA/utility work. Using the customer's own engineer's numbers makes the result hard to argue with.
MnDOT: older statewide placeholders, for reference only. Partial: MnDOT lists a single-pass micro ($5.33; doubled here as an approximation) and has no cape-seal line (regional value retained). Northeastern municipal bids typically run well above MnDOT district averages.

Step 3aScenario A — Without Delta Mist

A standard "business-as-usual" schedule, auto-built for your analysis period: pavement reaches its first mill & overlay at ~year 18 (≈20-yr life), then a 16-yr overlay cycle (NCAT 19-03 Table 2), with crack sealing and a mid-life surface treatment between. Change the period and it rebuilds; edit any row to make it your own, or press Reset.

	Year	Activity	$/SY	Cost	Today's $

Scenario A total (NPV)–

per square yard–

Step 3bScenario B — With Delta Mist

The Delta Mist preservation program, auto-built for your period: an application at year 4, then every 3 years, capped at 4 applications. The ~12 yr of added life defers the mill & overlay from ~yr 18 to ~yr 30 — its RSL basis, shown here even when it lands past a shorter window (greyed = deferred out of the analysis, which is the benefit). The overlay's end-of-life credit goes live once the period reaches it (25–30+ yr, per NCAT). Change the period and it rebuilds; edit any row, or press Reset.

	Year	Activity	$/SY	Cost	Today's $

Scenario B total (NPV)–

per square yard–

How the end-of-life (RSL credit) works — and why some rows grey out

The analysis stops at a fixed horizon, but a mill & overlay lasts ~16 years. If you resurface near the end of the window, most of that overlay's life is still unused when the clock stops — a real asset the agency still owns. So the analysis refunds that unused value as a salvage (RSL) credit, straight-line, so a scenario isn't punished for repaving late. Per NCAT 19-03, Eq. 2.

How it's figured (for the last major treatment): remaining life = life − (period − treatment year); credit = −(cost) × remaining ÷ life, discounted to the horizon. Example — 20-yr window, overlay at yr 18, life 16: 16 − (20 − 18) = 14 yr left, so 14/16 ≈ 88% of the ~$389k overlay is refunded, ≈ −$189k in today's dollars. Push the overlay out to yr 30 and only 16 − 12 = 4/16 (25%) is left, so the credit shrinks.

Greyed rows are treatments scheduled after the analysis period — they cost nothing inside the window. That's the deferral benefit: pushed far enough (as Delta Mist does), the big overlay leaves the analysis entirely.

Step 4Results

Scenario	Total NPV	Per SY

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When the money gets spent

Each dot is a treatment. Delta Mist (small dots, early) pushes the big-ticket items (large dots) to the right — or off the chart.

Cumulative spend over time (today's dollars)

Running total each program has cost by a given year, in present-value dollars. The step down at the final year is the end-of-period RSL credit (refund for unused treatment life), so each line ends at its scenario's total NPV — and the gap at the right edge always equals the headline savings.

Without Delta Mist With Delta Mist

CO₂e ledger (physical tons — no discounting, no pricing)

Counts the greenhouse gas of each scheduled treatment, mirroring Step 3 — edit years there, factors here. Factors verified against FHWA ICE v2.2.8 and its user guide (July 2026); read the caveats before quoting numbers.

Emission factors (editable)

Factor	Value	Unit
Crack seal		kg CO₂e/m²
Microsurfacing (single pass)		kg CO₂e/m²
Chip seal (inside cape only)		kg CO₂e/m²
Delta Mist application		kg CO₂e/m²
Mill & overlay, asphalt-only		t CO₂e/lane-mile

Derived: double micro = 2 × single pass; cape = chip + single micro. M&O default = asphalt 761.08 t × 0.0254 + base stone 166.42 t × 0.0045 + steel 2.03 t × 1.16 + diesel 1,165.68 gal × 0.01304 per lane-mile (concrete zeroed for asphalt locals). 7,040 SY per 12-ft lane-mile.

⚠ Delta Mist factor is a derived, conservative proxy: product-sheet application rate (0.09 gal/SY) × typical emulsion density (8.5 lb/gal) × ICE bitumen factor (0.4 t CO₂e/t) = 0.166 kg/m². Delta Mist is plant-based, so this likely overstates it — replace with the Driven Plastics EPD value when available.

Ledger

Scenario	Events	t CO₂e

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Caveats — read before quoting these numbers

ICE has no spray-rejuvenator category; the Delta Mist factor (0.166 kg/m²) is derived from the product-sheet application rate, a typical emulsion density, and ICE's bitumen factor. Replace with the Driven Plastics EPD value when available.
ICE resurfacing is "pavement-material-neutral" and includes ~131 t concrete/lane-mile from mixed-road bid data — concrete is zeroed here for asphalt local roads.
No "local road" class exists in ICE; the closest (urban minor arterial/collector) likely overstates a subdivision street on both sides of the comparison.
ICE's asphalt materials factor (~25 kg CO₂e/t of mix) runs well below NAPA's cradle-to-gate EPD benchmark (~54 kg/t). Treat the overlay term as ICE-basis; NAPA-basis is ~1.5–2× higher (which would increase the avoided total).
Known ICE bug — confirmed still present in v2.2.8: its per-lane-mile conversion of the generic preservation factor is ~116× too high vs. its own per-m² value; only per-m² literature values are used here.
Preservation factors are 2010–2015 literature averages, not Massachusetts-specific; double micro is assumed = 2 × single pass.
Verified against ICE v2.2.8 + user guide (July 2026): Table 12 preservation factors, resurfacing quantities, and subbase/steel/bitumen factors unchanged; construction-fuel factor updated to the GREET-2022 lifecycle diesel value (0.013036 t/gal, 2020s decade — ICE declines it by decade).

ReferenceAssumptions & math

Every formula and default this tool uses, in one place. This section documents the methodology and can be removed later without affecting the calculator.

Present value of each treatment

Every scheduled treatment is discounted to today's dollars by the year it occurs:

NPV_year = unit cost × project size × 1 ÷ (1 + r)^year

where r = discount rate (default 3.0%) and year is measured from today. Treatments scheduled after the analysis period are excluded. Analysis period default = 20 years.

Remaining service life (RSL) credit

If the last major treatment still has useful life left at the end of the analysis period, that unused life is credited back (a salvage value), then discounted to the horizon:

salvage = −cost × max(0, life − (period − year)) ÷ life

credit = salvage ÷ (1 + r)^period

Scenario totals & savings

Scenario total = Σ NPV_year + RSL credit

Savings = A_total − B_total

Savings % = Savings ÷ A_total

A = Without Delta Mist, B = With Delta Mist. Per-SY figures divide totals by project size.

Unit prices

Costs are entered per square yard (curb-to-curb) and multiplied by project size. Preset libraries:

Standard — Lexington DPW pricing table (corrected 7/20/2026).
MnDOT — MnDOT-era reference figures.
Custom — any hand-edited value switches the preset to Custom.

Delta Mist unit price is a placeholder until a bid price is received.

CO₂e ledger (physical tons, no discounting)

Per-treatment carbon uses an area basis, converting square yards to square meters:

area (m²) = size (SY) × 0.83613

t CO₂e = area × factor(kg/m²) ÷ 1000

Mill & overlay is priced per lane-mile instead:

t CO₂e = size (SY) ÷ 7040 × 37.63

Avoided = A_CO2 − B_CO2

CIR and FDR have no ICE factor loaded and are excluded from the ledger.

Default factors (kg CO₂e/m²): crack seal 0.08, microsurfacing 0.25, chip seal 0.45, Delta Mist 0.166; mill & overlay 37.63 t/lane-mile.

Real-world equivalents

EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies factors:

4.6 t CO₂e = one passenger car for a year
8.887 kg CO₂ per gallon of gasoline
0.060 t CO₂ per tree seedling grown 10 years

Default treatment service lives

Treatment	RSL (yr)
Delta Mist application	3
Crack seal	3
Microsurfacing (single)	4
Chip seal	7
Double microsurfacing	7
Cape seal	7
Mill & overlay (1-3 in)	16
Cold-in-place recycling	20
Reclamation / FDR	25

Sources

Life-cycle method: NCAT Report 19-03.
Carbon factors: FHWA ICE v2.2.8.
Pricing: Lexington DPW / MnDOT schedules.
Conversions: 0.83613 m²/SY; 7040 SY per 12-ft lane-mile; 4,840 SY per acre.