You’re a business owner with a great location. Your building looks good, and your employees and customers are in and out every day. Things are going great. So what if your parking lot is a bit grey? As long as it can be driven on, right?
Actually, wrong. There’s quite a few reasons why you should have a team of professionals inspect and possibly re-sealcoat your parking lot. Let’s just take a look at some of the most important reasons.
You’re on a timer
Yep, as much as we all hate the deadlines, your sealcoating does have a limited shelf life of seven to twelve years before serious repairs can become required. This is due to the constant battering of UV light (sunlight) on the asphalt that makes up your parking lot.
Fortunately, you can almost “see” the countdown happening when your pavement begins to turn from black, to brown, and then finally grey. When its reached that point, several other types of damage can begin to appear.
You’ll begin to notice piles of sand gathering in the low spots of your parking lot. No, this isn’t coming from your neighbors or an unfriendly draft. This is purely from the beginning signs of deterioration of your asphalt.
Then the bigger problem begins to happen, as the “bigger rocks” in your asphalt begin to fall out. Then the raveling begings to happen, making your smooth parking lot become uneven and rough to drive on. From there, even more dirt begins to show up, accompanied by grass and weeds growing where they shouldn’t.
Ultimately, you lose the most valuable part of your asphalt, which is its flexibility. Asphalt is used primarily for its ability to “bounce back” to its original shape. When it loses that flexibility, it becomes brittle, and cracks start to form. This is when your handsome building begins to look like a derelict, abandoned building.
But now that you know the signs, you are armed with the knowledge you need to prevent all of this from happening. You can have a qualified sealcoating expert inspect your asphalt and give you the best recommendations to keep your parking lot looking both new and impressive.
