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NVM Paving & Concrete, Inc.

Northern Virginia Paving Company

Parking Garage Maintenance

Summer Maintenance Tips for Your Parking Lot and Driveway

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Summer Maintenance Tips for Your Parking Lot and Driveway

Research shows that about 5% of US urban land comprises parking spaces. Having a clean area to park and a well-maintained driveway boosts the appeal of your home.

Also, maintaining your lot and a driveway is crucial to reducing injuries. The presence of cracks and potholes in such areas can lead to flat tires. People are likely to slip and fall on ill-maintained parking areas and driveways.

Regular maintenance is vital since summer heat expands asphalt and widens cracks. Here are summer tips for maintaining your parking lots and driveways.

Sealcoat Your Parking Area

Sealcoating involves covering your asphalt with a durable layer that improves your driveway’s resistance to sun rays. Applying a sealcoat in your parking lot reduces damages like cracking and staining. Sealing the spaces where people can park every three to five years keeps it intact and lessens injuries.

Although sealcoating may seem like an unnecessary expense, it saves you money eventually. Your lot and driveway will regain a fresh new look. Besides, sealcoating gives your driveway flexibility to handle traffic without creating potholes.

Repair Cracks and Potholes

High summer heat causes your asphalt to become malleable and soft. Summer temperatures can rise to 1490F, and this high heat damage causes depressions on the wheel paths. Such depressions then turn to potholes and cracks.

It’s crucial to repair your driveway and parking lot as soon as you notice any cracks and potholes. To prevent cracking from becoming extensive, ensure you fill them with asphalt or crack fillers. Hiring an expert helps you fill the potholes to limit injury cases and damages to your car.

Perform Regular Cleaning

Regular cleaning is a summer maintenance tip that ensures your parking lot and driveway retain their value. Sweeping every morning helps your remove leaves and debris, making your home look occupied.

Besides, cleaning removes oil stains and any unnecessary trash that may cover cracks or potholes. Having a clean driveway helps you conduct a faster inspection to assess any cracking and uneven surfaces.

Remove Stagnant Water

Water can cause significant damage to your driveway or parking lot. Pooling water weakens areas where you park, causing water to seep into the sublayers. During summer, the sun’s heat causes water to have air gaps that weaken the asphalt from within the sublayers.

Since a weakened driveway can’t handle weighty objects, it can become uneven and quickly develop potholes. Also, allowing water to settle on your lot eases mildew growth, affecting your parking space’s quality. You can avoid further asphalt repairs by draining water and keeping your driveway space dry.

Maintain Your Parking Lot and Driveway During Summer

Maintaining your parking lot and driveway helps you reduce repair costs. Moreover, regular maintenance improves your home’s curb appeal. It also enables you to prevent injuries to people and damage to your car.

At NVM Paving & Concrete, we provide asphalt repair and sealcoating. We can also construct and repair your parking area with concrete or asphalt. Reach out to us for all your parking lot maintenance needs.

The Cost-Saving Benefits of Sealcoating

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Save Money With Sealcoating

Maintaining your commercial property is a significant investment already. You spend both time and money making sure that your business is running smoothly and effectively. When it comes to budget, careful measures must ensure that intelligent decisions will pay off over time.

Paving your property is a significant asset and cost to your business. Don’t waste money by letting it go to disrepair; sealcoating helps protect and prolong the life of your pavement. Find out more cost-saving benefits of sealcoating and how to schedule efficiently for lasting results. 

Protect Your Budget 

Allocating money for paving your commercial property can be a considerable investment of sums, but it is worth it over time. Keep in mind that you must protect your budget by maintaining your pavement to avoid unnecessary allocations for the same job. Budget once for complete paving and then for maintenance sealcoating only. Sealcoating is significantly less costly than repaving. 

Protect Your Pavement 

In most of the areas we serve, clients experience a regular influx of snowfall, ice, and freezes. Sealcoating can help protect your pavement from weather damages. Without sealcoating, water may seep through cracks or under the surface, creating potholes and structural damage. Regular sealcoating efforts can mitigate freeze/thaw cycles prevalent in the late winter and spring months.  Preventable repairs are especially costly. 

Protect Your Image 

The whole reason you paved your commercial property in the first place was to increase curb appeal. Maintaining your effort is necessary to control the first impressions of clients and business associates that come to your property. Remember, you only get to make a first impression once. The difference between getting an account or not can be in the details. 

Protect Your Routine  

Scheduling routine maintenance in advance and on time is the best way to ensure that you will keep up with sealcoating. Schedule your sealcoating within the first year after your new pavement installation and then every two to four years afterward, unless you notice any additional issues. Preventative care is less costly than treatment. 

Contact NVM Paving & Concrete to learn more about sealcoating or schedule a consultation for your commercial property. Reach us by calling 703-423-0471 or sending an email today!

How Temperature Extremes Add Stress to Pavement

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Can Your Pavement Handle The Heat?

Most people understand that pavement takes a lot of abuse. Just the sheer size of vehicles and semi-trucks put a lot of weight on a surface, sometimes as much as several tons. Then there is the constant assault from chemicals such as oils and gasoline. While most people understand that weather impacts the durability of pavement, you might not know just how large that impact can be.

At NVM Paving & Concrete, our technicians know that heat and cold as well as moisture, are tough on parking lots.  For this reason, we employ talented professionals that strive to lay down the best asphalt and concrete surfaces to give your pavement the best possible chance.

The Impact of Temperature Swings

Basic physics says that pavement expands when heated and contracts when cooled. This has serious implications for a parking lot or other paved surfaces. In the DC, Maryland, and Northern Virginia areas, temperatures approach the 90s or higher in the summer and dip below freezing in the winter. Just as importantly, thanks to micro temperatures across a parking surface due to shade and other factors, different sections of pavement heat and cool at different times.

All of this can lead to imperfections in the pavement. Uneven heating and cooling allow a variety of blemishes to develop:

  • Cracking
  • Warping
  • Expanding segments
  • Potholing 

Over time if not addressed, these imperfections worsen. As water gets into small cracks, freezes, and then expands, minor issues become large problems.

The Solution to Bad Weather

Getting the most out of a paving job depends upon several factors. The first is making sure the job is done professionally from the start. The second step is performing routine inspections on the property to detect problems, especially in the middle of summer and winter. The third step is to make sure professional routine maintenance is used on all minor cracks.

At NVM Paving & Concrete, we do superior work throughout the lifespan of the pavement. Call 703-423-0471 or email us today to learn more!

Partner With NVM Paving & Concrete for Your Next Paving Project

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Why Choose NVM?

An asphalt project for your commercial business can be a big deal and a costly expense. This is why it is important that you partner with a company that knows its way around the industry. Find out why our team at NVM is the best choice for your next project.  

Unrivaled Expertise

You are partnered with unrivaled expertise when you partner with NVM. At NVM, we use industry-leading equipment and have the skills and experience to make a difference. While the process may be similar, each project is unique. An experienced contractor can use the information they have gathered from numerous past projects and come up with the best plan for your property.

One Company for Everything

It can be a juggling act when you try to balance multiple contractors for different jobs. Instead of trying to coordinate with several contractors, NVM can provide you with all of your paving needs. When you work closely with one company, you are more likely to see the job finish quickly and more to your liking.

Budget and Time Friendly

As a business owner, you not only have time restrictions, but you have a budget that you need to stick to. If a job is done improperly or carries on too long, that is money out of your pocket. With fair prices and a commitment to serving customers, we save our clients time and money. A quality company should be able to work with your schedule, rather than forcing you to bend it to match theirs.

Top-of-the-Line Workmanship

Our reputation precedes us. As one of the most trusted paving contractors, we take workmanship seriously. Our contractors having the skills to lay, repair, and maintain asphalt should be a guarantee to you that the job will last. Not only do we vouch for all of your construction teams and managers, but previous customers have also offered sparkling testimonials and reviews.

For your next paving project, go with a company you can trust. Contact NVM Paving & Concrete by calling 703-423-0471 or emailing us today!

The Pros and Cons of Adding Curb Stops to Your Lot

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Properly utilized curb stops can provide a great deal of utility to your parking lot or garage. Unfortunately all too many lots feature curb stops which are used at inappropriate times or are inappropriately installed, and this instead leads to a great deal of frustration for drivers on the lot who see more harm than good coming from the stops. If you’re considering adding curb stops to your property, here are some important considerations to ensure that you get the best possible results.

Good Uses of Curb Stops

A curb stop which is being used correctly should be in place in order to prevent greater harm from occurring than the stop would cause on a car which strikes it. There are three primary situations in which adding a curb stop is extremely helpful:

  • When a parking spot is up against a wall, adding a curb stop reduces the chances of a vehicle striking the wall. This protects the car as well as the building and anyone inside the building on the other side of the wall.
  • Oftentimes permanent structures like metal poles are protected by curb stops. This is particularly helpful if the pole is sturdy and could cause massive damage to the car or elements attached to the pole.
  • When a parking spot abuts a pedestrian path, a curb stop is an essential safety tool to reduce the chances of a vehicle accidentally striking a person.

Bad Uses of Curb Stops

The main concerns when installing a curb stop come down to errors in the installation process.

  • Improperly aligned curb stops can cause more risk than they prevent. Placing stops with narrow gaps between them creates too small of a pedestrian lane and are a hazard.
  • Choosing the wrong size for your stops is another safety risk. While too large stops are likely to reduce pedestrian access, a stop that is not wide enough for the expected vehicles may fail to stop the vehicle sufficiently.

For the best curb stop installation contact NVM Paving & Concrete today at (703)-423-0471.

3 Compelling Reasons to Have Your Parking Garage Re-Striped

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Garages, like any other structure, need to be maintained for the comfort and safety of its users. Over time, parking space lines and road directions can fade, especially due to wear and tear in addition to exposure to weather. Your parking garage should be re-striped every two years or so to keep it looking its best. Here are three more reasons that re-striping your parking garage is important.

1. Safety

Property owners and managers can be liable for accidents and injuries that occur as a result of garages without clear marks. You can reduce the risk for injury as well as potential damage to customers’ and residents’ vehicles while promoting safe driving if lanes, directions, right of way, and other driving indications are easy to follow.

2. Professionalism

The appearance of your property sends an important message to your customers or residents. Therefore, you can indicate a level of attention to detail and a commitment to service with a well-maintained parking garage. Imagine what the experience can be in a garage or lot with no clear instructions or poorly marked spaces. If your customers find parking at your location frustrating, it could influence their entire experience.

3. Organization

A chaotic parking lot is a headache for everyone, even property owners and managers. You can ensure the best usage of available space and a return to order to keep roadways clear and allow for traffic to move smoothly. Without well-marked parking, people may not be sure what they should do.

If you would like to learn more about the importance of parking upkeep, please contact NVM Paving and Concrete. We can assist you with re-striping your parking garage or any other services you need to maintain the parking facility for your business. Give us a call at (703) 372-9335.