Why Driveway Owners Should Consider Regular Seal Coating Of Pavements

By Tanisha Berg


When you notice your drives are fading, you should make sure you apply sealants. The seal coating procedure will help restore the color of driveways. The drying and fading of blacktop is accompanied by hardening of paving material. With time, when you have laid down your driveways, they will begin to harden on the outermost layer. The blacktop is made up of binders, which harden due to constant exposure to ultraviolet rays.

Initially, the cracks are small appearing as tiny hairline cracks. However, as time goes, the minute cracks will widen and deepen. The moment you notice a change in color of driveway blacktop from the black hue to a faded grey shade, you should realize that it is time to sealcoat it. A sealant is meant to preserve the quality as well as flexibility of blacktop.

Such flexibility minimizes the rate at which cracks occur. The presence of cracks within driveways should be deal with immediately. The first cracks you will see are the tiny hairline cracks. These are not easy to see and they may not present many threats to driveways. They can easily be sealed using a sealcoat. Whereas sealcoats can help restore the tiny hairline cracking, it is essential to understand that by itself, sealcoating is not a repair technique.

Sealcoating is simply a driveway or parking lot restoration procedure. It will help enhance the visco-elasticity of blacktop thus minimizing the cracks. When the first coating is applied about 6 to 12 months after the installation of pavements, other successive coats should follow. It is recommended that you sealcoat parking lots and drives after about every 2 to 5 years.

Apart from environmental factors, asphaltic material suffers from manmade factors such as gasoline products and salts. Gasoline products like transmission fluids and oils will spill on surfaces of pavements and cause the binders to deteriorate. If not checked, the areas, which receive constant spills such as the parking lots, could deteriorate fast.

Your blacktop is likely to collapse as the material fills the empty cracks. By using sealants, it helps protect water from penetrating inside pavements. The sealants provide a membrane cover, which is weatherproof. With timely application of sealcoats, it will extend the time life of your asphaltic pavements. Before you apply any sealant product, ensure the surfaces are in good condition.

It is therefore, important to repairs the cracks, potholes, and other forms of defects before you apply sealants. The contractors you choose to sealcoat driveways, they should be qualified, and use the right products. There are many coating products in the market and if you do not use quality sealants, you may spend a lot of money.

Besides, sealcoats ought to be put when oils from a newly installed pavement have dried. When you have installed new driveways, the blacktop has light hydrocarbons. This is not the right time to apply sealants. You should wait until those oils have dried completely. It may take about 6 months to one year for such oils to dry. The first coating will be done once the pavements have cured properly. Asphaltic driveways should be sealcoated using sealants after every 3 to 5 years after the first coating.




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