8 March 2022
 Categories: , Blog

Commercial asphalt paving services offer many services that can help you maintain the parking areas and other asphalt surfaces around your business. If your asphalt has seen better days, you may need to have it resurfaced or completely stripped and repaved, but the asphalt contractor can help you decide before the work begins. 

Damaged Asphalt

If the asphalt parking area or other surfaces on your property are damaged, working with a commercial asphalt paving service to repair the surface will ensure the asphalt is fixed correctly. In some situations, the damage can be patched easily, but there are times when the old asphalt will need removing so that some work can be done on the base under it to reinforce it structurally before more asphalt can be applied. 

Often drainage issues and other problems can cause the base material under the asphalt to erode and allow sinkholes or potholes to form. Simply filling the holes is usually not going to fix the issue long term, so it is essential that the commercial asphalt paving service is prepared to deal with these repairs or work with a contractor that can before resurfacing the parking lot. 

Old Asphalt

Asphalt surfaces can break down with exposure to weather, chemicals, and traffic, requiring the material to be replaced. A commercial asphalt paving company can often grind the surface of the old asphalt off, recycle it, and repave the surface with fresh, new asphalt. 

Grinding is often more cost-effective than entirely removing the asphalt and replacing it. The grinding will often leave about half the thickness of the asphalt in place but score it with ribs that allow the new material to grip and adhere to the base. This ensures that the new asphalt will stay in place without separating and creates a better surface. 

If the paving company has an asphalt reclaiming machine, they can use the material they ground off, mixed with some additional asphalt to produce a strong surface that can contain a percentage of reclaimed material and some new asphalt. Using reclaimed asphalt to offset the new mix reduces the material cost significantly. 

This process makes the old asphalt from your parking lot useful for many projects and can make the cost of the repairs more manageable. Once the new surface is in place, you will need to have the parking lot restriped with sparkling lines and other markings to ensure proper use.

Most commercial asphalt paving services don't restripe lots directly, but they may have a subcontractor they use to get the work done. Talk with your contractor to determine if they will handle the restriping or if you need to arrange for a company to come and do that work after the paving is complete.