Saturday, July 19, 2014

Protect Your Driveways With Asphalt Paving Contractors

By Paulette Mason


The decision to construct pavement surfaces like driveways and parking lots comes with a lot of challenge. Pavements are long-term investments you would want to use in managing and controlling traffic as well as enhancing the look of the landscaping feature. If you plan to design and construct a parking lot or driveway, then you might want to consider consulting asphalt paving Phoenix contractors.

Asphaltic pavements suffer from various defects as a result of environmental as well as manmade elements. The exposure to sunlight will lead to baking of blacktop, which eventually turns its colors and becomes hard. Cracks start to form with time and if they are not corrected, they could enlarge and bring in costly repairs.

First, the pavements have to be constructed using the best practices. You do not want to have a contractor who installs substandard pavements or offers shoddy repair and restoration work. If you do not get it correct from the start in installing your pavements, you will face a lot of challenges especially in repairs.

With a well designed pavement, it will serve you without many troubles. A contractor needs to ensure the base is build firmly and well contoured so as to match the layout of your pavements. The strength of pavements is as good as the sub grade. Proper preparation of ground is needed when building the sub grade layer.

Use of substandard materials will only cause troubles in future. The quality of a blacktop surface is as good as the foundation it sits on. If you have an unstable foundation, there will be movements of soils and the aggregates, something that causes the blacktop to split and break apart. Before applying sealcoats, contractors should ensure that pavements are in good condition.

When you protect pavements with sealcoats, you ensure that little cracks occur. Cracks increase the susceptibility of pavements to water damage. Inside pavements, water causes problems such as potholes and enlargement of cracks. Sealcoats are applied in different stages. The first coat is applied when new blacktop dries properly.

Cracks will form due to hardening and drying of blacktop. The tiny cracks, which form at first, are not a threat. However, if they are left unresolved, they will enlarge and lead to bigger problems than expected. Tiny cracks such as the fine hairline cracking are best resolved by use of sealcoats. The coats can repair such cracks since they have not penetrated deep in blacktop.

Proper mixing and application of asphalt mix during the construction of parking lots and driveways will ensure you have structures that can withstand the weight of vehicles and the stress caused by effects of weather changes. For driveways, they can have thickness that is about 2 inches of the hot asphaltic mix. The hot mixes are classified into different categories depending on how and where they are applied. The hot mixture being used in building your driveway and parking lots should work appropriately in the local environmental conditions.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment