Winter is not far away and the freezing cold ends up taking its toll on parking lots. The freezing precipitation puts excessive pressure on the asphalt in your parking lot and results in deep cracks which can eventually have a negative impact on its foundation too. It doesn’t take long for minor problems to escalate and turn into major ones and what was once an inexpensive fix turns into a large-scale repair project.
The effective preventive measures
However, this is avoidable; the one way to do this is to conduct a thorough inspection of the parking lot now and take suitable preventive measures to prepare well for the cold winter months. There are three preventative maintenance steps that you should take to ensure that your parking lot is ready for the winter; these are:
- Asphalt patching– In this process the failed asphalt material is removed to a certain depth and then replaced with a new hot-mix asphalt surface. This helps strengthen all the weak areas and increases the life of the asphalt installation as a whole. Once this process has been completed, an application of cracksealer & asphalt sealcoat are then used on the pavement and this protects it from further damage.
- Crack sealing– This is the most cost-effective method to prevent the asphalt from deteriorating further. The larger cracks tend to have more movement when there are fluctuations in the temperature. This makes it necessary to fill the cracks with material that has a certain amount of elasticity. Rubberized hot pour filler is used to fill the larger and deeper cracks. This material fills into the cracks and hardens; it prevents the water from penetrating the installation
- Sealcoating- This process protects and is very effective in maintaining the life of theinstallation as it prevents the water from seeping right into the asphalt. Sealcoating is something that should be done every two to four years, based on the weather and traffic conditions. It’s best not to defer fixing the problem as that can only aggravate the issue and you will be saddled with additional expenses for patching or paving, both of which can be very expensive.
When it comes to maintaining the condition of your asphalt paving, it’s best not to take any chances. Take the necessary precautionary measures like asphalt patching, crack sealing and sealcoating now and save yourself a lot of hassle and expense in the future.