If you’re a commercial property owner, knowing how parking lot repair works is essential. Just like anything else, your parking lot will experience wear and tear over time leading to cracks, potholes, and other unsightly damages that can make your property look bad and be a safety hazard.
This blog post will discuss everything you need to know about asphalt parking lot repair in South Carolina. We’ll talk about what damages to look for, how to fix them, and how often you should have your seal coat maintenance done to prevent damage in the first place!
Why Keep Your Parking Lot Looking Good?
As a business, you want to ensure your parking lot is always looking its best. After all, it’s the first thing customers see when they arrive at your property and can be a major source of customer complaints if it’s in disrepair. Keep your curb appeal and property value high by investing in a sealed and maintained lot!
How Often Should I Have My Parking Lot Maintained?
Keeping up with regular maintenance on your parking lot will also help you save money in the long run. Ignoring damage or waiting too long to have repairs done often leads to much more costly repairs down the road.
The ideal frequency for asphalt parking lot repair varies depending on how much traffic the area sees and what type of sealcoating was applied initially. Generally speaking, you should plan to have your commercial parking lot inspected and resealed every two to three years.
What Damages Should I Look For?
When inspecting your parking lot, look for any signs of cracking, potholes, fading sealcoating, standing water, or other visible damage. Fading striping paint can be another sign that your parking lot needs prompt repair.
How Do You Repair Parking Lot Damage?
The most common asphalt parking lot repairs include crack filling, patching potholes, and applying a fresh seal coat.
Depending on the extent of the damage, you may also want to consider having your entire parking lot resurfaced by an experienced paving contractor. When you’ve lost structural integrity, resurfacing is crucial to regain a solid and durable surface.
Types of Asphalt Surface Damage
Fatigue Cracking (Alligator Cracks)
Severe damage can look like interconnected cracks forming a complete pattern. Pieces may move around with traffic and cause structural failure. You may see water penetration through the cracks causing deterioration of the asphalt. (1)
Block Cracking
When you see asphalt layer contraction and daily temperature cycling, the binder in the asphalt may age, causing cracks to form. Block cracks are at least 50 ft long. Shorter cracks could be transverse or longitudinal cracking. (2)
Longitudinal Cracking
May be caused by poor construction. Moisture infiltration through cracks can bring on fatigue cracking and structural failure. Any longitudinal cracking in the wheel path that meanders or has associated random cracking is considered fatigue cracking. (3)
Transverse Cracking
Contraction of the asphalt surface due to low pavement temperatures. Moisture infiltration happens without crack sealing. (4)
Asphalt Parking Lot Repairs
Repairing minor cracks before they get worse can help prevent more damage. The asphalt’s foundation can lose its integrity when water gets down into deep cracks.
Cycling weather with extreme temperatures can often start an asphalt surface showing wear and tear.
If you don’t repair cracks or get busy patching asphalt, your asphalt surfaces will need a larger and more expensive asphalt repair process later on.
Once potholes form from smaller cracks, you need a contractor you can trust to do your repairs properly. Repairing potholes immediately and handling regular maintenance is crucial to the continued health of parking lots.
- Crack filling: Potholes and cracking allow water or debris to penetrate the surface layer, causing further damage if they are not filled in with crack filler
- Asphalt overlay: Stripping the top layer off the pavement and replacing it with a new layer of asphalt helps extend the life of the pavement while giving a “like new” appearance
- Repaving: Once a parking lot begins to crumble, repaving and reconstructing it is typically the only course. Ideally, this is only necessary once every few decades. (5)
Parking Lot Maintenance for Durable, Long-Lasting Asphalt
Regular cleaning is crucial for an asphalt parking lot. Keeping surface dirt, grease spots, and leaf stains cleaned and doing general cleaning can go a long way toward preventing cracks.
Preventive maintenance, such as getting any cracks repaired and doing a seal coat on asphalt parking lots every 2-3 years, can keep your asphalt pavement looking good for decades.
Our Experienced Asphalt Contractors Can Prevent or Repair Cracking
At AMP Paving, we have the state-of-the-art equipment needed to fill all sizes of cracks you may experience and handle any repairs, including all types of cracking or potholes.
We can also handle preventive sealcoating maintenance and repaving if needed.
Our expert commercial asphalt paving services extend to clients throughout South Carolina. We are fully insured and licensed, so you can rest assured that our work is up to code. Contact us today for a free quote!
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