Prevent Damages On Driveways By Applying Asphalt Sealcoating

By Cornelia White


Sealcoats are preservative procedures, which help restore the quality of pavements and prevent damages caused by weather elements and gasoline products. With asphalt sealcoating, this process helps in restoring the black color of blacktop, preventing direct heating of pavement by ultraviolet rays, and protection from action by water. Asphalt, though a durable materials, it has its own weaknesses too.

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.

Ultraviolet rays reaching the blacktop begin to degrade it. Although is initially flexible and elastic, with time due to UV rays, asphalt will dry out and become rigid. It also turns its color and looks grayish instead of the beautiful black hue. The use of sealcoats not only helps to restore the black color but also prevents weather elements like the UV rays from damaging blacktop surface of your pavements.

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.

If however, you fail to take precautionary measures, and do not sealcoat the surfaces, then the small cracks continue widening. As cracks widely, water finds its way inside the subbase layer, and this is when you begin to deal with large problems. A sealcoat helps restore the beautiful black color of pavements. When asphaltic pavement material fades, it turns grey and looks unattractive.

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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