How Sealcoating Your Asphalt Can Help Preserve And Protect Your Driveway Or Parking Areas
Parking areas and driveways made from asphalt are durable, but chemicals like gasoline, oil, and brake fluid can damage the surface if enough of them get on the surface. Asphalt seal coating is an excellent way to help reduce the damage to the pavement. When done correctly, the seal coating can offer a durable barrier to help lock out things that would otherwise penetrate the asphalt's surface.
Sealing Your Asphalt
Asphalt seal coating can be applied to small driveways by hand or to larger parking lots with a large machine that can cover a larger area quickly. Sealcoating can also be used cold or heated, but the type of sealcoating often reflects the amount of it being applied.
More significant asphalt sealing operations often use hot sealcoating sprayed over the surface of the existing asphalt, then spread smooth and allowed to cure. This is the most effective way to cover large areas like parking lots and ensure a good bond between the seal coating and the asphalt.
For smaller projects like a residential driveway, you can spread the asphalt seal coat out of five-gallon buckets using a squeegee to ensure it covers the entire surface and then allow it to cure for a few days. Because the coating is cold, it does not penetrate as deeply into cracks and imperfections in the asphalt. Still, residential driveways typically do not have much traffic on them, so the cold seal coat is more than sufficient to coat and protect it in most situations.
Repairing Damage
Before any asphalt sealcoating takes place, it is vital to clean the surface and repair any damage to the asphalt. Cracks and crevices that have opened on the surface need to be sealed with a filler material to ensure the gaps are closed and water can not seep up from under the asphalt.
The crack sealer is put into the gaps and heated to allow it to flow into the deepest parts of the opening. Heating the filler will help create a good seal between the sections of asphalt that have separated. Once all the cracks are filled, an asphalt seal coat can be applied directly over them, locking out water and other materials, so nothing penetrates the surface or gets under the asphalt surface.
The asphalt must be clean before the process begins, so washing down a residential driveway or having a professional parking lot sweeping service go over your parking lot before sealing the asphalt will help ensure proper seal coat adhesion and better protection.
Talk with the contractor doing the asphalt sealing for you to determine how often you will need to reseal everything. They may recommend a yearly seal coating, or if the asphalt is new, you may not need it for several years.
