Common Winter Parking Lot Repairs

Not only is the winter unpleasantly cold, but it is also bad for parking lots. If your business has an asphalt parking lot, it’s important to keep the maintenance up to date, especially since a bad parking lot can have a negative impact on your business. Your parking lot is the first impression your customers have, so it needs to be taken care of.

Also, if your parking lot is riddled with cracks and potholes, you may be liable for any damage caused to customer cars. That means lawsuits that you don’t want to face. Instead, skip the risk, and take the proper steps to maintain your parking lot.

Know the Signs

Asphalt is a very effective road material, but unfortunately, it doesn’t last forever. With age, comes deterioration, which is accelerated by external influences, such as heavy vehicles and the winter elements. The best time to take action to repair and maintain your parking lot is before winter hits, but if that’s not possible, take action as soon as you can.

Asphalt damage is caused by a number of things during the winter. Hopefully, by knowing the signs, you can take some steps to prevent or repair any problems.

Cracks in your asphalt may seem harmless, but in reality, they are the beginning of potholes and other heavy damage. Water is an amazing substance for many reasons, one of which is that when it freezes, it expands. If water gets into the cracks in your pavement during the winter, it will most likely freeze, expand, and form an even bigger problem like a pothole, which takes a lot more time and money to fix.

Recognizing and repairing small cracks and other small signs of damage in your pavement will save you in the long run.

Common Repairs

The simplest kind of repair your parking lot might need is a patch. This is performed on certain cracks, potholes, or weakened sections of pavement. A patch may be applied using infrared thermal bonding, in which a piece of brand new asphalt is seamlessly blended into the existing asphalt over the patch. The bigger the problem, the bigger the patch needed.

Other patches are put in place by milling the surface, then laying a thin layer of asphalt over the top. This is perfect for areas where the damage is minimal.

Sometimes, the damage is so great that a simple patch won’t do the trick. In that case, the asphalt will need to be excavated, removed, and replaced. This forms a more stable foundation, though it is only done in severe cases.

It’s true that at one point you will need to completely relay your asphalt, but in the meantime, to avoid a total pavement rehaul sooner than necessary, take the proper steps and have your parking lot maintained throughout the winter. Call us for any of your asphalt needs.