Is your parking lot protected against winter weather? Many commercial property owners are unaware of how snow, ice, and freeze-thaw cycles can damage pavement and cause expensive asphalt repairs in the spring.
Thankfully, there are many things you can do to prolong the life of your parking lot, which include repairing asphalt cracks and potholes and applying a protective asphalt sealcoat layer.
Our asphalt contractors at Allied Construction are here to help explain the ways winter weather affects asphalt from cracks and potholes to snow plow damage so you’ll have more knowledge about scheduling a regular maintenance routine before the snow falls.
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Winter, Chemicals, and Fades In Pavement Markings
During the winter months, the surface of your parking lot can become slippery from ice, hail, or freezing rain. To prevent lawsuits, it is important to make sure that your parking lot is de-iced as much as possible to prevent slip and falls and to create safer driving conditions.
If you’re a commercial property owner, it’s your responsibility to keep your parking lot safe for drivers and pedestrians. In the winter, this means keeping your parking lot free of snow and ice. While hot-mix asphalt is great for withstanding salt, the same can’t be said for parking lot striping. Unfortunately, salt and de-icing chemicals can be tough on pavement markings and can make them look faded over time. If this is the case, you’ll need to make sure you budget for parking lot striping and marking in the spring.
Salt and snowmelt chemicals can also impact your local waterways and seep into your water table to cause a negative environmental impact. While it’s important to keep a safe ice-free parking lot for your customers, consider if salt and snow-melt chemicals are necessary the next time you decide to use them.
Faded pavement markings are a hazard that should be fixed as soon as possible. When pavement markings are faded, they increase the risk of door dings and often lower the total number of cars a parking lot can hold because people are so scattered. It’s also important that motorists know where handicap spaces or fire lanes are located. Our asphalt paving company will be able to repaint lines and markings so your parking lot continues to be a safe place.
Asphalt Cracks and Potholes
We recommend you before winter. Otherwise, the harsh freeze-thaw cycles will cause the pavement around cracks and potholes to contract. When this happens, cracks and potholes get bigger and can even allow water to seep into the foundation to cause permanent damage.
Many commercial building owners are surprised to find their parking lots riddled with cracks and potholes when the snow melts. This is because winter weather is especially harsh on asphalt pavement that hasn’t received regular asphalt maintenance. The best way to protect asphalt parking lots is through crack filling, pothole filling, and sealcoating. Proper sealcoating protects your parking lot from being damaged by snow, rain, sleet, UV rays, and automobile fluids.
Another thing to check with our asphalt contractors is your parking lot’s subbase. The sub-base serves as the foundation for your whole parking lot and can prevent cracking during snowy or icy weather patterns. When parking lot paving is done correctly, the risk for asphalt cracks and potholes goes way down.
Snow Plow Damage
It’s not uncommon for a rookie snow plow driver to set the blade too low. When this happens, the snow plow blade scrapes along the surface of your parking lot and damages the sealcoating. Thankfully, damage to asphalt sealcoating can be easily repaired by a fresh coat in the spring. If you see gouges in the pavement that are deeper than 1 inch, you’ll need asphalt crack filler to repair the damage.
Need Your Asphalt Fixed?
The at Allied Construction work hard to make sure you are completely satisfied with your newly paved asphalt parking lot. If you are interested in our asphalt paving services, call any of our Michigan locations for your free estimate. We are proud to serve Clarkston, Brighton/Howell, Milford, Lapeer, and all of Southeastern Michigan.
This blog post has been updated.