Tar and Chip Surface Maintenance. If you want something to last, take care of it. Your tar and chip seal surface is no exception.
On average, you can expect a tar and chip seal surface to last roughly seven years or more. Mistreat your surface or neglect signs of wear and tear, however, and you might find yourself needing to repave your tar and chip surface long before its expiration date.
Maintenance may even be one of the main reasons why you elected to go with tar and chip over traditional asphalt paving in the first place. While it’s true that tar and chip seal involves significantly less maintenance than blacktop, you still need to be vigilant with the little maintenance that tar and chip requires.
Here are five handy tips to keep in mind for proper tar and chip seal maintenance:
1. Wait for the binder to fully set
You can avoid a number of maintenance headaches down the road by simply waiting for the tar and chip seal binder to set before using your newly paved surface.
Driving over your tar and chip surface prematurely could create uneven areas or produce an excess of loose stones.
2. Avoid hard accelerating and braking
While you may have limited control over hard accelerating and braking within your business’s parking lot or on a public roadway, you can certainly monitor these actions on your ranch driveway.
Both accelerating and braking can loosen stones, sometimes flicking them across your driveway and onto your lawn!
3. Sweep loose stones frequently
One of the drawbacks of a tar and chip seal surface is that stones can come loose from time to time. While this is normal and should be expected, be mindful of the potential damage that loose stones may cause to vehicles.
Especially on public roadways, where cars traveling at higher speeds, as well as in parking lots, where there is quite a bit of congestion, loose stones can easily be flicked up into the windshields and exteriors of other cars.
Unlike blacktop cracks that require frequent attention, you’ll find that cracks in tar and chip surfaces are largely self-healing. However, there may still be times when you need to perform maintenance and repairs on larger cracks or potholes.
In these cases, it’s important that you use new, clean stones. Liquid asphalt struggles to cling to old, dirty, or dusty chips.
5. Wash the surface regularly
The binder in your tar and chip seal surface is vulnerable to breaking down when motor oil and other petroleum-based products are introduced. Unfortunately, with cars parked in your parking lot or driveway, it’s likely that your surface is going to see its fair share of automotive fluids, regardless.
For this reason, it’s wise to have your tar and chip surface washed regularly—perhaps as little as every few years, but depending on the amount of traffic your surface sees, perhaps as often as every year or so.
Doing this will make sure that oil stains are removed before they are able to cause serious damage to your surface!
LEARN MORE ABOUT ELITE ASPHALT
The Most Trusted Pavement Contractor in Dallas, Fort Worth & North Texas!
Elite Asphalt is formed of a team of pavement experts. With over 30 years’ experience, we have worked on all types of asphalt pavement and concrete projects. With an up-to-date, cutting-edge fleet of equipment, we offer services for all types of paving jobs, from complete installations to ongoing maintenance.
We carry out projects for property managers, developers, contractors and homeowners. If you need an Estimate for your next commercial, industrial or residential project, please call (817) 587-8158 today to speak with one of our trusted advisers.
Elite Asphalt LLC.
5080 Ben Day Murrin Rd.,
Fort Worth, TX 76067
Tel: (817)-587-8158
www.eliteasphalt.net
