Protect Your Driveways With Asphalt Sealcoating

By Cornelia White


Proper maintenance of asphaltic pavements is essential if you have to prolong their lifespan. Asphaltic material is durable and lasts for many years. However, if preventive maintenance is not put into practice properly, it can give room for the asphaltic blacktop to deteriorate fast. Using asphalt sealcoating helps in preserving the quality of your asphaltic pavements. The coat helps protect the surface from effects of sunlight and rainwater.

When you install asphaltic pavements, you have to maintain preventive care and maintenance throughout the entire life of the structure. In its original form, asphaltic material has an impressive jet black color, which makes it look attractive to the eye. However, this is only a short lived color appeal as soon you lay down the material, it starts changing its molecules structures.

With time, the blacktop changes its color and small stones become loose on the surfaces. Those stones break away due to the deteriorating binding property of blacktop material. The adhesives in asphalt will deteriorate and become weak with continuous exposure to ultraviolet rays. The effects of sunlight are more when the surface is not protected. If you protect blacktop with a sealcoat, you prevent the sunrays from reaching and baking the blacktop surface.

At this juncture, you have to replace your pavements or the entire road structure. Ultraviolet rays begin to act on pavements soon they are laid down. The heat from the sun directly bakes the asphaltic blacktop and begins to make the material rigid. Asphaltic material is designed to work best when it is elastic. But when it is heated, asphalt dries fast and becomes hard. As it continues to receive sunshine, it becomes too hard to bend or expand and contract.

The blacktop develops cracks because the material is unable to contract and expand evenly and uniformly. Sealcoat products offer a protective layer on pavements. The layer is weatherproof and prevents the damages caused by weather elements like rainwater and sunshine. When it is applied on top of blacktop, it prevents ultraviolet rays from reaching and heating the asphaltic material directly.

Besides, it prevents water from penetrating the pavements. Most of the cracks your see on roads start from small cracking caused by the drying asphaltic material. As it dries out, it forms thin, tiny hairline cracking. These are usually not a problem because they can be sealed with use of a sealcoat.

Transmission fluids and oil spillages on roads increase the oxidation process leading to premature damages of your pavement structures. In times of cold weather, when snow forms on surfaces of roads, de-icing salts are used to thaw and help remove it from roads. However, these salts are not good for the blacktop asphaltic material. They cause damages with time meaning you may have to deal with major repairs.

Applying the sealcoat products restores the black color adding a curb appeal to your pavement structures. The coating also prevents gasoline products from damaging the pavements. Asphalt materials are affected by gasoline, and since they are made from similar petroleum-based raw materials, they tend to react with each other. However, by using asphalt sealcoating products, you are able to prevent salts and gasoline products from damaging the asphaltic materials of your pavements.




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2 comments:

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