The Basics Of Maintaining Your Asphalt Parking Lot
For many businesses, asphalt will be the material of choice when it comes to paving the parking lot. Despite asphalt's durability, it can suffer extensive wear and need to be prematurely replaced if the business is failing to effectively follow the best practices of asphalt maintenance.
Keep The Surface Free Of Vehicle Fluids
Over time, the surface of the asphalt parking lot will have fluids from vehicles gather on it. This can be unavoidable, but it will eventually cause substantial deterioration to the asphalt if these substances are not removed. Pressure washing the asphalt every few weeks will be needed for businesses that experience heavy traffic in their parking lots. Otherwise, this could lead to the asphalt needing to be resurfaced or even completely replaced. This will be needed even if the pavement has a sealant applied to it, as the sealant can degrade if it is exposed to these acidic chemicals for a long period of time.
Patch Small Surface Cracks
Small surface cracks can be another inevitable problem for parking lots. When a business fails to take steps to repair these cracks, the damage to the asphalt pavement can dramatically worsen. For example, these cracks will grow in size due to moisture soaking into them and the weight of vehicles driving over. The process of patching asphalt pavement is not difficult, but it can be labor-intensive. Also, if this repair is not completed correctly, it may fail relatively soon after being completed. Luckily, there are asphalt maintenance services that can provide effective and convenient patching of these cracks so that your pavement can look its best while also lasting for as long as possible before needing to be replaced.
Use Sealcoatings To Protect The Pavement
Sealcoating the asphalt pavement is among the most effective types of proactive maintenance that you can take for it. The sealcoat can help to effectively reduce the amount of damage the asphalt sustains from moisture exposure or ultraviolet light. A business leader that has concerns about the parking lot being unusable while the sealcoat is being applied should be relieved to know that this coat will dry very quickly once it is applied. This can make it possible to easily schedule this to be done before the business opens for the day or shortly after it has closed. If this coating is not applied, the prospects of the parking lot developing major cracks, potholes or other expensive problems to repair will be greatly increased.