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Keeping Your Asphalt Paving Strong in the Summer Heat

Keeping Your Asphalt Paving Strong in the Summer Heat May 23, 2019

Keeping Your Asphalt Paving Strong in the Summer Heat

Summer is almost upon us, and you’re thinking about asphalt paving in Central Illinois. This process is a wise choice if you need a new driveway or an excellent material for a parking lot, but summer can be a significant challenge for this unique and powerful paving option.

As a result, you need to take steps to ensure that your paving is in as good of shape as possible this summer. The following maintenance steps help to protect the surface of your pavement and make sure that it lasts for years longer than you might imagine.

1. Inspecting Your Pavement First

The first step in this process is to inspect your asphalt as much as possible before you start performing any maintenance. This step includes checking your asphalt for any signs of damage, including breaks in the surface of the pavement, cracks, and even bubbles. This type of damage can quickly spread across your parking lot or driveway and cause complications that are hard to overcome.

Don’t be afraid to get on your hands and knees to perform a very slow, but thorough, inspection. As you move, make sure that you pay attention to small signs of imperfections. These are often harder to spot than more significant problems but can spiral out of control into major issues quite quickly. Just as importantly, make sure to track the issues as you move to ensure you find them correctly.

This whole process should take from 1-3 hours, depending on the size of your asphalt paving surface. For example, a large parking lot will naturally take longer to inspect than a smaller driveway. And make sure that you bring along multiple people to help with this process to ensure that things go as smoothly as possible and to ensure that you don’t miss any potential issues.

2. Regularly Clean Your Pavement

Dirt and other contaminants can easily affect your asphalt paving in a multitude of ways. For example, some driveways and parking lots may end up getting affected by mold, mildew, and other types of issues that can rapidly spread across your pavement and cause surprisingly devastating damage if not properly managed.

For example, mold may work its way into cracks on the surface of your pavement and cause them to widen as the growth expands. This problem is an insidious one because it typically happens quite slowly but can take over your driveway before you have a chance to react to it. This process is one that you should do at least once every week or two to ensure that you get the best results. The cleaning process can vary depending on your pavement, but should include scrubbing and other types of methods to ensure that things go as smoothly as possible.

3. Filling and Sealing Any Cracks

Cracks are a common problem with pavement and can become a serious issue if you let them spread. This issue is one that can quickly sneak up on you if you aren’t careful about properly repairing cracks as they develop on the surface of your driveway.

For example, you should seal any cracks that you notice in your asphalt paving to ensure that they aren’t too severe. You can either spot repair these cracks yourself or contact a professional in Central Illinois to ensure that your pavement is as durable as possible against the hot summer sun.

Just as importantly, you should sealcoat your asphalt if you haven’t done so yet. Add an excellent sealcoat to your driveway ever 2-3 years, but no more, to ensure that it remains strong under various weather conditions. For example, sealcoating protects your driveway and parking lot from UV rays during the hot summer season.

4. Control Pooling Water ASAP

One issue that you might notice affecting your pavement this year is pooling water. The heavy precipitation coming out of spring – combined with the melting snow common in Central Illinois – can make your parking lot or driveway a very messy place.

Unfortunately, all of this water might start eating away at the surface of your pavement to cause indents and other problems. This pooling water can then cause different types of damage to your asphalt, damage that may be hard to reverse or fix with other repair methods.

Therefore, you need to make sure that you fix any pooling water issues the moment that you spot them on your asphalt. This process often requires filling in areas of your pavement that are sinking or sagging or fixing the base of your driveway thoroughly.

5. Change Up Where You Park

One smart way that you can avoid issues with your asphalt paving is to change up where you park throughout the summer. As asphalt is uniquely affected by the heat of the sun, changing up where you park ensures that you don’t focus too much weight in a single location. For example, if you park in just one spot all summer, your tires could combine with the heat to cause minor to significant damage to the asphalt.

Just as importantly, you need to make sure that you avoid placing any other heavy objects on the surface of the asphalt during the hottest time of the year. For example, cement blocks, large parking signs, and other items could start to sag into your asphalt if you let them sit for too long. This process should take years to worsen, but can be avoided with a careful change up of where you place heavy items.

Try to avoid putting your car in the same spot every time you come home for the night. You can also change up your parking sports for your business to prevent this problem as well. Try to paint the lines in slightly different directions to distribute weight more evenly across your pavement surface. In this way, you can keep your parking lot or driveway secure for years to come.

Getting the Help That You Need

As you can see, maintenance on your asphalt is simpler and more streamlined than you may have imagined. However, you may still want to hire a professional to do some of this work for you to ensure that it goes as smoothly as possible during the hottest summer months.

So if you want to ensure you get the best asphalt paving in Central Illinois this summer, please don’t hesitate to contact us at Elite Paving & Sealcoating to learn more. We can not only install high-quality pavement at your home or business, but can also provide maintenance and much more.

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