Tag Archives: sealcoating

Why sealcoating asphalt parking lots, driveways and roads should be an integral component of your facility’s maintenance program

Asphalt turns brittle overtime and begins to deteriorate without proper care and protection. At Griffin Contracting, we protect and preserve our customers’ asphalt surfaces by expertly and economically sealcoating them, which often doubles their useful life.

Basically, asphalt is a rock and gravel aggregate that is held together with a binder made from petroleum products. Maintaining the integrity of this binder is critical to ensuring that an asphalt surface provides years of service. Sunlight, particularly UV rays, rain, wind, gasoline and oil, to name a few, attack the binder, in turn weakening its hold on the aggregate and allowing cracks, potholes and ragged edges to occur, all of which are safety hazards and all of which cost money to repair. Sometimes the damage becomes so severe that the surface needs to be dug up and re-paved.

A facility maintenance program that includes scheduled sealcoating—perhaps as often as every couple of years, depending on use—can extend the life of asphalt pavements more than twice as long as pavements that are untreated.  This can amount to substantial savings when one considers the huge expense associated with repaving versus the low cost to protect. 

parking lot

What is Sealcoating?

When properly applied, sealcoating inhibits erosion and provides a dark black slip/skid resistant surface. It also enhances the curb appeal and safety of a parking lot, driveway, or road. It is a liquid, coal-based product that is mixed with sand and/or other fillers and is applied to an asphalt surface by spraying or brushing. 

Application

What are the Other Benefits of Sealcoating?

Besides enhancing curb appeal, safety and durability, sealcoating offers these other benefits.

  • Prevents water penetration—Because sealcoating fills surface voids, it minimizes the impact of water on the binder, particularly the rate at which water seeps into the surface and weakens its integrity.
  • Resists oil and gas spills—Gasoline and oil drip onto asphalt surfaces from automobiles, trucks and motorcycles, causing the asphalt binder to soften and breakdown. Sealcoating will help make asphalt surfaces impervious to gas and oil spills.
  • Makes the pavement easier to clean–Sealcoating creates a smooth surface that is easier to sweep and/or hose off than unsealed surfaces.
  • Painted lines are brighter and better looking with sealcoating—Freshly painted parking and traffic control lines on a sealcoated surface enrich the appearance of any parking lot, dirveway or road and make them safer to navigate,

Adding sealcoating to your property’s asphalt maintenance program is an investment that will pay for itself in short order. For more information about our sealcoating services, or for information about asphalt paving, painting, patching, line striping and milling, contact Griffin Contracting today.