Frequently asked questions

Neither, exactly. Sealer goes on as a film measured in thousandths of an inch. It carries no load, so it will not stiffen a soft lot or hold a failing section together. What it does is take the UV, the water and the fuel drips that would otherwise reach the binder holding your asphalt together. That binder is a petroleum product. It oxidizes under sunlight and goes brittle, which is why an unprotected lot turns gray and starts shedding aggregate before it ever cracks. Sealer buys the surface time. It does not buy the base any.

A crack is not the damage. It is the opening. Asphalt spreads load down into a compacted stone base, and that base is what actually carries a loaded truck. Water runs the full length of an open crack, soaks the stone underneath, and saturated stone loses bearing strength. From there the surface flexes with nothing solid under it, the crack edges ravel and break away, and the hole shows up at the weakest point. That is the whole path from a hairline you can step over to a pothole you have to cone off.

Cracks that still run as a line are worth sealing: the long ones down the direction of travel, the ones running across the lot, and the joints where two paving passes met. Alligator cracking is a different animal. That interconnected pattern of small blocks is base failure showing through the surface, so the support is already gone. Sealant poured into it covers the pattern for a season, then the pattern comes back, and by then the surface has usually dropped. Those areas need cutting out and patching. We walk the lot and tell you which kind you have.

A surface patch replaces the top layer of asphalt over a base that is still sound. A full depth patch cuts through the pavement, takes out the failed stone and soil underneath, rebuilds and compacts the base, then repaves the hole in lifts. The failure tells you which one you need. Line cracking, raveling and shallow surface loss usually sit over solid ground. Alligator cracking, a section that visibly moves when a loaded truck rolls across it, and a pothole that returns in the same square foot are base problems, and a surface patch will not fix any of them.

Most commercial lots come back around every 18 to 24 months, but that is an average and your lot wears unevenly. Lines go first where tires turn across them, so entrances, end stalls and drive lanes fade years ahead of the middle of a row. UV bleaches the pigment, and yellow gives up before white does. Oil and fuel soften the asphalt under a line and lift the paint in patches. Where the lot is plowed in an ice event, the blade takes markings off in one pass. Read the busy corners rather than the whole lot; they tell you when it is due.

The ADA sets counts, not preferences. A parking lot with up to 25 spaces needs one accessible space, and the required number climbs from there with the total. At least one in every six accessible spaces has to be van accessible. Every accessible space needs a marked access aisle beside it, 60 inches minimum, and a van space gets its clearance either by widening the space to 132 inches or by widening the aisle to 96. That aisle is part of the space, not spare pavement. Paint fixes markings. It cannot fix a slope that was built into the lot.

An overlay is a new lift of asphalt bonded on top of the old surface. It replaces the wearing course and nothing below it. Full depth means the old pavement comes out, the base gets rebuilt and compacted, and the lot goes back new. What decides it is what is failing. Raveling, oxidation and shallow surface cracking are wearing course problems and an overlay answers them. Alligator cracking, rutting that moves under load, and areas that stay soft after rain are base failure, and asphalt laid over that reflects the same pattern back through. Core cuts tell you the existing thickness; the surface will not.

Sealer is a water-based emulsion. It cures by the water leaving, so it needs the pavement and the air above about 50 degrees and climbing, and it needs them to hold there overnight while the coat sets. Rain inside that window lifts an uncured coat right off the surface. Winter is out, and so is any stretch of wet weather. It also means the same lot cures at different speeds in one day: full sun and low humidity pull the water out fast, while the shaded strip along a north wall stays wet the longest.

Asphalt binder is a petroleum product. Motor oil, diesel and hydraulic fluid are chemically close to it, so they dissolve it rather than sit on it. Water beads and runs off; a fuel spill soaks in and softens the binder that holds the aggregate together. Once that grip goes, stone works loose under traffic, the spot ravels, and then it dishes out. Concrete gets ugly under the same spill. Asphalt gets weaker. That is why the loading bay, the dumpster pad and the lane where trucks idle are worth cleaning on a schedule instead of when somebody finally notices.