Asphalt maintenance is a crucial part of taking care of your property. When your asphalt begins showing signs of wear and tear such as cracks, you need to address it immediately by having it repaired with the help of asphalt and paving companies. Leaving it can lead to more damage, such as bigger cracks or even potholes. If you don’t have proper asphalt maintenance, the heat and humidity will damage your pavement quickly.
How Does Heat Affect Asphalt?
Every hard surface including asphalt absorbs heat, which causes not only the surface temperature to rise but also the encompassing surroundings through ambient heating, creating the effect of what is called Urban Heat Island (UHI).
Damage caused by extreme heat and humidity
As the heat works on asphalt, at peak afternoon temperature from 90°F or above, roads start to buckle, ripple, and crack. To make this worse, if you experience rain, the water will infiltrate these defects and cause more damage. Once you have both high temperatures and rain, humidity starts to grow, which will affect the subbase of the asphalt. The humidity will allow air gaps to form, which leads to crack. Once a crack has begun, any water that enters begins to break down the binder cohesion, also causing potholes and raveling. In order to prevent costly damages, proper commercial asphalt maintenance, and repair is necessary.
How to prevent Asphalt from Heat Damage?
Sealcoating – Sealcoating is a great way to prevent cracks and extend the life of your pavement. Since seal coating protects asphalt from the two most damaging things – UV rays and rain, heat damage can be prevented or minimized by applying a thin liquid layer of sealcoat over a paved surface. According to professional asphalt paving contractors, the best time to sealcoat is during the day when the heat is on because sealant needs several hours of sunlight to cure properly, at the day time sealant can interact with more sunlight so the commercial asphalt contractors can complete more area and do their job efficiently.
Crack & Joint Sealing – If your surface has any crack, it should be repaired immediately. If cracks are not sealed immediately, the water will penetrate beneath a road or your parking lot and exploit its weakness, which results in potholes. This will not only affect the curb appeal of your property. Without proper maintenance, it will lead to expensive repair or a complete replacement of your pavement structure.
Scheduled Maintenance – To extend the life of your pavement structure and prevent huge damage, implementing regularly scheduled maintenance is a great way to prevent asphalt structure from heavy damage. For regular maintenance, you can hire professional paving contractors. They can quickly identify and solve all asphalt paving issues and save your pavement from expensive damage.
If you need to reseal your property’s asphalt, or you have identified cracks or potholes that require resurfacing or any repair, then contact Pavement Services Corporation. We have a dedicated team of asphalt and concrete pavement contractors offering services for parking lot repair, asphalt repair, asphalt paving, seal coating, concrete paving, concrete repair, ADA concrete ramps, asphalt milling, joint and crack sealing in Dallas, Houston, Fort-Worth and other metropolitan areas of North Texas.
