Eight Rules for Preserving Your Asphalt Investment

Transcription

1 Eight Rules for Preserving Your Asphalt Investment An Executive and Educational Briefing Advanced Pavement Technologies West Dewey Avenue, Wharton, NJ APT-8600

2 Just as preventive action makes sense for protecting your health, preventive maintenance makes sense for protecting your investments in parking lots and other paved surfaces. Each is a strategic approach to achieving desirable long term outcomes. The goal of a good proactive maintenance routine is to keep pavement surface conditions good to excellent, and never letting them fall below that level. Your immediate benefits are attracting tenants and clients to your property. Over the life cycle of the pavement, you enjoy a longer useful life before expensive replacement, and lower repair costs overall. Sunlight and water are the main enemies of pavement surfaces. Your proactive maintenance routine should focus on preventing the first from breaking down the pavement from above, and the second from corrupting or undermining it from below. Then when repairs are needed, be timely and use the best techniques. Here are eight rules to guide your proactive pavement management program to preserve your investment for the long run, and yield big financial, safety and aesthetic dividends. Rule One: Block Harmful Impacts of Sunlight Aesthetics are why most seal coat their parking lots, but preventing the oxidation that breaks down the asphalt should be the real motivation. If you focus on this protective or preventive outcome, the lot will continue to look better also. One basic choice is using a seal coat, which sits on top of the surface and screens out sunlight. This works while the sealant is intact, so the key is to replace or replenish it on a regular schedule. The recommendation is a bi-annual application of two coats of the SealMaster MasterSeal product because it has been engineered to last longer than other sealers on the market. The other choice is rejuvenation. This product goes on like seal coat, but rather than just sitting on the surface to block the sun, it penetrates deep below the surface to about 3/8 to ½ inches. It replaces oils depleted by oxidation; consequently, it helps prevent brittleness and increases flexibility two critical factors that extend the life of asphalt. A parking lot treated with rejuvenation will also retain an even, dark appearance longer because the treatment penetrates below the surface; consequently, time, weather and traffic have less impact. Rejuvenation remains a choice only if you have not already used seal coating. The recommendation is that the first application occurs the second year of a new surface, and then again in 2 to 3 years. After that a less frequent rejuvenation cycle of every 5 years should keep up the positive effects. If budget demands it, you could switch over to seal coating after the second rejuvenation cycle. The major advantage of seal coating over rejuvenation is the drying time. Seal coating dries in 4 to 8 hours, but rejuvenation requires that you close off the lot for at least 24hours before foot or vehicular traffic resumes. Eight Rules for Preserving Your Asphalt Investment Advanced Pavement Technologies 2008 All rights reserved. 2

3 Rule Two: Keep Water Out! Water penetrates from the surface when the seal is compromised by wear, cracks and dried out oils. Timely sealing, rejuvenation and crack repairs keep pavement in-tact. Water also undermines pavement. That s why cracks have to be filled and sealed in a timely fashion to keep water from penetrating through them. Successive cycles of freezing and thawing open up these cracks. Eventually they turn into pot holes which are more difficult and expensive to fix. Water may also undermine the surface if it is allowed to sit. In time, the base and subbase may be compromised. The original design of the lot and how the base was built has a lot to do with this situation, but delay in fixing the surface problems will also clearly aggravate it. The first line of defense is keeping catch basins free flowing, so water doesn t have time to break down the edges of the lot. The second is eliminating dips and indentations that allow the acidic action of sitting water to break down the asphalt and create deep, ugly and dangerous potholes. Delay may also increase your liabilities. Rule Three: Fix the Real Problem Investing in a remove and replace patching for areas riddled with an extensive network of deep cracks (usually a result of postponed maintenance or poor preventive care) or deep undulations will pay dividends. Also, if the surface problem is from a poor base, fix the base before you have the surface patched. Resist the temptation to just add a cosmetic skim coat. You will eventually have to deal with the real problem anyway. But by then the problem will spread and the repair will also cost more. Rule Four: Fix It the Right Way Also, make sure that the contractor uses the best practices. Industry standards for patching call for the use of a pavement saw for a clean edge. The cut should be at least a foot beyond the damaged area, so that the patch bonds with a solid area. The old pavement should be broken up and cleaned out to a sufficient depth (usually 4 inches or more) to remove all the damage and reach a solid base. The patch should be compacted in 2 lifts to build it up to the full surface height. A tack coat should be applied to the vertical faces of the cut to help the old and new surfaces bond. While doing repairs the right way from the first may seem more expensive, you can save by not having to repeat poor repairs that don t last; repairing a larger area later; or worse yet, replacing the entire lot prematurely. Fixing cracks the right way also pays dividends. Timeliness is the first part of the correct procedure; in other words, fill and seal cracks before they multiply and get out of control and turn into potholes. Second, repair significant cracks using a two step process: 1) open them up with a mechanical router that creates a ¾ by ¾ inch reservoir with a greater surface area for hot crack fill to grab onto, and 2) inject the filler material at a consistent temperature. Consistent temperature is critical for a strong bond and requires a kettle with temperature controls. Make sure your contractor has the right equipment. Eight Rules for Preserving Your Asphalt Investment Advanced Pavement Technologies 2008 All rights reserved. 3

4 In order to keep patches and overlays from reflecting cracks (Cracks work up to the surface at the rate of 1/2 of pavement thickness per year.), a non-woven interlay fabric (like Petromat) should be used. Experience with roads has shown that this step may extend pavement life by as much as 10 years. The fabric becomes part of the pavement, forming a barrier to water and absorbing stresses leading to new cracks. Rule Five: Keep the Surface Clean Year Round Sand, loose soil and debris are abrasives. They scuff and wear off the seal coating, exposing it to sunlight and oxidization prematurely. Consider regular mechanical sweeping as the equivalent of regular oil changes for your car. It prevents more expensive repairs. Rule Six: Timely Maintenance Returns Dividends Several Fold It s timing that determines whether a maintenance routine is proactive and preventive, or whether it is corrective (therefore, reactive). If you follow the appropriate schedule, the protective shield remains in place. As the following chart below shows, spending two dollars to keep the pavement surface in tact and the condition good to very good can save you from spending three to four times that amount later when conditions have deteriorated to poor or fair. Other studies have shown that Other preventive maintenance, when applied at the appropriate time, is 3 to 6 times more cost effective than providing no preventive maintenance and having to prematurely rehabilitate the pavement. (source: Benchmark, Inc.) Building Operating Management in its December 2002 issue also reported spectacular returns (over 500% for parking lots) for investments in preventive maintenance. ( Thinking Like a CFO: Prevention Pays ) Eight Rules for Preserving Your Asphalt Investment Advanced Pavement Technologies 2008 All rights reserved. 4

5 Rule Seven: Create Curb Appeal While Adding Safety Asphalt is a practical surface for parking lots but it can be boring. Your visitors, guests, tenants or shoppers form their first impression starting at the parking lot. You can affect that positively by adding color, pattern and dimension. StreetPrint looks like pavers or stones, is available in a variety of colors, and has both time and cost advantages over these alternatives. It s also easier to repair, and can be made reflective for nighttime safety. StoneGrip is another low maintenance and long lasting solution for both safety concerns and design issues. It offers many color choices, can be implemented in relatively short time, and has clear advantages over loose, colored gravel. Rule Eight: Select a Contractor Who Takes Your View and Has Broad Skills An experienced pavement maintenance contractor with a proven track record should help you rank the pavement damage so that your budget may do the most good for the long term. It s important to share your plans for the property with the contractor in order to get the best options most consistent with those plans. Getting an annual expert evaluation is good practice. It s important that you have the right contractor with expertise in all aspects of maintenance and repair. Also select someone who understands how to build a parking lot the right way, so if major problems arise they ll be fixed properly. Otherwise, you may be offered a solution that fits the contractor and not your actual situation. And, finally, choose a contractor who will take the time to really listen to you, evaluate your unique situation, develop real options, and take the time to give you supporting information. That s really the only way you can make the best, informed decisions for your current budget and long term return. Advanced Pavement Technologies mission is to improve your properties value and profitability through complete asphalt and concrete maintenance, repair, replacement and improvement services. Clients who follow our consistent, proactive maintenance cycle recommendations benefit, enjoying higher occupancy, improved property value, less risk and more cost-effective use of their budget. We use the best available products for the job. We are proud authorized applicators of: SealMaster MasterSeal for improved durability against traffic, water and weather. StreetPrint for the look of pavers but in less time and lower cost, and StoneGrip for added safety of concrete surfaces. Because you value your property and must have minimal disruptions, you receive an On-Time Performance Guarantee on all seal and rejuvenation projects. Our focus is on NJ, CT, NY, PA, MD, DE, VA. info@aptnj.com ~ 877.APT.8600 ~ Eight Rules for Preserving Your Asphalt Investment Advanced Pavement Technologies 2008 All rights reserved. 5