For your home or business, your curb appeal depends on a well-maintained, attractive driveway or parking lot.
You’ve driven up to a building with pot holes, cracks or faded asphalt, doesn’t it diminish your opinion?
There are 7 reasons in the Sacramento Valley why you need to hire an asphalt contractor to repair or refresh your driveway and/or parking lot.
1. Age
Whether we like it or not, things age. Just as we don’t look the same as we did 10 years ago, neither does our driveway. As asphalt ages, the pavement can become more brittle and, therefore, more vulnerable to cracking. While you can’t keep your parking lot from aging, you can stay current with maintenance and consult with a paving expert to keep the pavement intact for as long as possible.
2. Direct Sunlight
Too much sunshine, makes your skin look older, and it does the same thing to your parking lot. Older blacktop doesn’t look nearly as black as freshly paved parking lots due to sunlight-related fading. In addition to changing the color of your parking lot, direct sunlight speeds up the aging process. Shade your parking lot if possible, but definitely have a sealcoat applied at recommended intervals as well.
3. Spillage
While asphalt can handle harsher conditions than many materials, your parking lot is still vulnerable to the oily liquids and caustic substances. Oily liquids, gasoline, paint thinner, road salt and even industrial-grade cleaners can damage your driveway or lot.
4. Overgrown Vegetation or Roots
Trees, Weeds and plant life that outgrow their designated area can actually pose a threat to your asphalt over time. Root upheaval and weeds in the cracks affect drainage in parking lots. When you have a lot of overgrown plant life, this vegetation may lead to standing water.
5. Oversized Vehicles
When oversized vehicles move more slowly, the pavement beneath them takes a heavier load. If you often have delivery, garbage, or dump trucks in your parking lot, your asphalt may show signs of the excess weight sooner rather than later.
When you know to expect oversized vehicles, you can have a contractor lay down deep asphalt to compensate for the weight of these trucks.
6. Pools of Water
Asphalt is built on a base layer that provides a surface for the blacktop you actually see to adhere to. Unfortunately, water seeps right through the blacktop and penetrates the base layer easily, especially when it stands in one spot for a long period of time.
7. Unaddressed Repairs
Many property owners and managers assume that their parking lot repairs can be put at the bottom of their to-do lists because many roads and parking lots show signs of wear. However, unaddressed parking lot damage can worsen dramatically with normal foot and road traffic or weather changes.
For comprehensive asphalt paving services, trust the experienced team at Folsom Lake Asphalt.
Now in its third decade of management, Folsom Lake Asphalt (established in 1981) has made a permanent and positive mark throughout the California Central Valley from Fresno to Lake Tahoe. Folsom Lake Asphalt has constructed, resurfaced, or supplied enough asphalt to have paved the equivalent of 50,000 miles of 2-lane roadway. Folsom Lake Asphalt is proud to have earned the reputation for being the most conscientious and capable paving contractor in the Central Valley from Fresno to Lake Tahoe. There is no job too big or too small! Call us today for a FREE estimate. (916) 638-6794.
~ Brett Perkins
