Spring paving season is almost upon us and now is the perfect time to assess and take action regarding how you maintain your parking lot.

If you own or manage a property in Boston or any other city in the northern half of the US, you may be wondering if you still have time to sealcoat your parking lot before winter arrives. A fresh sealcoating will protect your parking lot from the damaging effects caused by weather and sunlight, as well as keep your parking lot looking fresh.

Your parking lot can often become an afterthought when considering ways to refresh the look of your facility, but often, your parking lot is the first impression you make when someone visits your property. You don’t have to settle for the same boring parking lot design and layout that your customers see in every other parking lot.

As a facility manager or business owner, you should always strive to improve the overall experience of customers and employees visiting your facility. I say overall, as you should consider improvements for both the inside, as well as the outside of your facility.

As with most things, the parking lot of your facility has a limited lifespan. A key part of any good maintenance plan, regularly scheduled sealcoating will protect and extend the life of your parking lot.

In most new parking lots, you expect to find that rich, black asphalt with bright, freshly painted lines, but often, one aspect of a parking lot is overlooked: drainage. Perhaps the most important aspect regarding the longevity of your parking lot, drainage will determine the ability of the pavement to withstand the harsh effects of traffic and weather.

A reactive maintenance plan requires something to go wrong or break down before the issue gains attention. When an asset malfunctions, a maintenance technician will identify the issue that occurred and take steps to restore the property to an operational condition. However, if maintenance issues begin to pile up, and when left ignored, can lead to catastrophic damage that can only then be repaired by full reconstruction.

Starting the day your brand-new parking lot is completed, it slowly begins to deteriorate, but it can be combated with routine preventative maintenance. To better understand what kind of maintenance your parking lot needs, you first will need to know its condition. To do this, you must first access the condition of your parking lot.