The short answer, and the long one
What Is Pavement Maintenance?
Keeping water out of the base under your pavement, in the right order, before the surface is gone. Do it and a lot lasts decades. Skip it and you are buying a new one.
Water in the Base
Asphalt is not the structure. The compacted stone underneath it is. The blacktop is a wearing course that keeps weather off that base, and everything called pavement maintenance is one of two jobs: keep water out of the base, or repair the base once water has got in.
That is why the order matters so much and why doing the cheap thing at the wrong time is worse than doing nothing. Sealer is a coating. It will not bridge an open crack, it will not lift a sunken area, and spread over a lot whose base has already failed it buys a uniform black surface and hides the evidence for a season.
In northwestern Wisconsin the clock runs on freeze and thaw rather than on sun. A crack that takes water in October is a wider crack in April, because the water in it expanded about nine percent and levered the sides apart. That cycle runs dozens of times a winter.
The short version
- Water in the base is the failure
- Everything else is preventing it or repairing it
- Order matters more than any single step
- Freeze and thaw sets the pace here, not sun
A lot kept sealed and crack filled from new can run decades. The same lot left alone needs repaving in a fraction of that, and repaving costs many times what the maintenance would have.
The Order the Work Goes In
Each step assumes the one before it is done. Sealer over outstanding repairs covers them up for a season and changes nothing underneath.
Clean and assess
You cannot judge a surface under dirt, and nothing bonds to it either. This is also when it gets decided whether the base is sound, because every step after this assumes it is. See what we look for
Repair what has failed
Areas that flex underfoot, potholes, and anything sunken get cut out full depth and rebuilt. Coating over these is what wastes the money. Asphalt repair and patching
Fix the drainage
A sunken catch basin, a blocked drain line or a low spot that ponds will undo the repairs above it. Water is the whole problem, so anything that concentrates it gets dealt with before the surface work. Catch basin repair
Fill the cracks, hot
Anything wide enough to take water gets hot rubber that bonds to the crack walls and stays flexible through the freeze cycle. Cold pourable filler sits on top and pulls away. Crack filling and sealing
Seal the surface
Now the coating has something to do: it keeps water and oxidation out of a surface that is sound underneath. On a two to three year cycle in this part of Wisconsin. Sealcoating
Put the lines back
Sealer covers the layout. Stalls, arrows, fire lanes and ADA stalls with their access aisles go back on after it cures. Parking lot striping
Get through the winter
A blade set too low takes the sealer off, and a blade that catches a basin frame lifts it into a spring repair. Winter is part of the maintenance cycle rather than separate from it. Commercial snow removal
What It Covers on a Commercial Property
A parking lot is not only asphalt. These are the parts that fail, and every one of them is somebody's job when it does.
Most companies in this market do one or two of these. We do all of them, which is what full service pavement maintenance means. Commercial services
Questions We Get
What is the difference between pavement maintenance and paving?
How often does a parking lot need maintenance?
Is sealcoating the same as pavement maintenance?
What happens if we defer it a few years?
Does it include the concrete and the drainage?
Not Sure Where Your Lot Is in That Order?
Send a photo of the worst area. The reply names which step you are actually at, which is usually earlier than people expect and occasionally later.
(715) 450-9897