As a facility manager, you must deal with many different issues every day. Just keeping up with your landscaping and building maintenance needs can take up a large portion of your time. At times, you probably feel overwhelmed and stressed. However, there is one chore that is often overlooked, and that is the asphalt maintenance for your parking lot.

Why Is Asphalt Maintenance Important?

Without asphalt maintenance, your pavement will require more repairs and have a shorter life. Although the precise savings vary, studies have shown that every dollar spent on asphalt maintenance will save at least four dollars in the future. Some studies have revealed that the return can be as much as $10 over the life of the pavement. Furthermore, studies on the effectiveness of asphalt sealcoating have indicated that sealcoating and crack repairs can prolong the life of a parking lot by two to three times.

Is There a Difference Between Parking Lot Maintenance and Asphalt Maintenance for Other Pavement Types?

The basic elements are the same. However, parking lots typically require a few more procedures than pavements that do not support vehicles.

What Should a Parking Lot Maintenance Plan Include?

If you ask an Austin commercial paving company about the most important facet of maintaining an asphalt pavement, the contractor will probably mention situational awareness. This means that you should pay attention to your parking lot’s condition, ideally by conducting thorough inspections every month. Identifying potential issues quickly allows you to correct them before significant damage can occur. Other important procedures appear on the following list.

1. Asphalt Sealcoating: Asphalt maintenance and sealcoating helps prevent cracks, soft spots, and color fading. Parking lot paving companies recommend sealcoating a new pavement within its first year of life, but you must wait until the asphalt cures to sealcoat. Curing can take three months or longer, depending on the asphalt thickness, the weather, and other factors. Your contractor will need to reapply your parking lot sealcoating every two to three years.
2. Parking Lot Repair: Virtually all contractors consider crack repairs as maintenance, but some contractors include pothole repairs in the same category. Any open break in the surface of an asphalt pavement has the potential to allow water to reach and erode the foundation. Therefore, it is vital to close these breaks as quickly as possible. It is best to have your contractor identify and repair significant cracks every autumn and every spring. Other parking lot repair procedures will need to be performed promptly, but these will be on an as-needed schedule.
3. Parking Lot Striping: In the Austin area, painted markings have a life expectancy of around two years before their visibility declines too much. Conveniently, this is also about the same life expectancy as sealcoating; you will always need to repaint after sealcoating.
4. Concrete Repair: Most parking lots contain a variety of concrete features, including wheel stops, curb ramps, and curbs. Should these concrete features get knocked out of place or damaged, they can pose risks. Therefore, you should include any necessary concrete services in your parking lot repair and maintenance plan.
5. Miscellaneous: Parking lots can contain a number of features, including signs, speed bumps, and landscaping islands. You should replace any signs that are damaged or excessively faded, and you should repair or replace their mounting poles if needed. Inspect speed bumps to see if they require repairs or repainting. Keep tree branches trimmed to an appropriate height above vehicles and the heads of pedestrians. You should also keep grass and other vegetation trimmed away from the edges of your pavement.

RDC Paving offers asphalt maintenance services to clients throughout the Austin metropolitan area. Our services include asphalt sealcoating, asphalt milling, parking lot striping, asphalt repairs and crack repairs, and asphalt overlays. We also offer concrete repairs, and we install concrete curbs, parking lots, ramps, sidewalks, and ADA-compliant concrete features. In addition, we offer concrete and asphalt driveway paving. We are a well-respected company with an exemplary reputation for workmanship, service, and integrity. To request a free, no-obligation job quote, fill out our online form, call 512-920-9155, or email Ryan@RDCPaving.com.