Parking lots
How often should a commercial parking lot be sealcoated?
A commercial lot in northwestern Wisconsin is normally sealcoated every two to three years, and the drive lanes come up before the stalls do.
The numbers
- Two to three years is the usual cycle on a commercial lot in northwestern Wisconsin.
- Drive lanes, entrances and turns wear faster than the stalls do.
- Striping normally goes back on with the sealer, because the coat covers the layout.
- Crack filling runs more often than sealing, because new cracks open every winter.
What sets the cycle
Traffic and sun. A lot that turns over a hundred cars a day is not on the same schedule as a church lot used twice a week, even when they were paved in the same month. The wear is in the turning: a tire scrubbing sideways takes sealer off far faster than a tire rolling straight.
That is why the entrance, the drive lanes and the corners gray out first while the back row of stalls still looks new. On a large lot it is worth pricing those areas on their own cycle rather than doing the whole thing early.
What has to happen the same year
Sealer covers paint. Every stall line, arrow, fire lane, crosswalk and marked stall on the coated area disappears under it and goes back on after the coat has cured, to the same layout it came off. So the striping is part of the same budget line, not a separate decision later.
Crack filling comes first in the same visit, because sealing over an open crack wastes the part of the coat that goes over it.
Building it into a budget
A lot on a maintenance cycle has a small predictable annual number and a larger one every few years. A lot with no cycle has nothing for years and then a repaving number that nobody planned for.
Walking the lot every spring after the thaw is what makes the difference. That is when the winter has shown you where the water gets in, and it is early enough in a budget year to do something about it.