Parking lot striping is more challenging than painting across a wall. It has to be done by a professional crew who will ensure that it serves you for a long time before it needs to be refreshed. You spend a cash load installing your parking lot —it only makes sense to maintain it properly by restriping.
A well-restriped parking lot can last one to four years, depending on various factors. Let’s understand the factors that go into how often your parking lot needs restriping.
6 Factors That Go Into How Often You Need Parking Lot Striping
Parking lot striping for a commercial property is beneficial to the long-term benefits of a business. You can determine how often to restripe a parking lot based on the following six factors.
1 – Time
A well-striped parking lot and pavement lines can last up to 4 years. However, you should be on the lookout if the line stripes start fading away.
If you notice that the striping paint has started to fade away, it’s time for a parking lot restriping.
2- Weather conditions
Areas experiencing heavy snow during winter have to be restriped annually thanks to the damaging effect of snow plows on your striping paint that makes them fade away. Moreover, the salt used to thaw ice on the parking lot reacts with the paint leaving behind faint pavement and parking lines.
Places that receive snow are advised to restripe their parking lots after winter to maintain their lot’s visibility. However, areas with low snowfall can take more than a year before they can do a parking lot striping.
3 – Quality of striping paint
The quality of striping paint determines how long the parking lot will remain visible. You can use five types of striping paints for your parking lot. They include the following;
• Water-based acrylic– these striping paints are widely used because of their high visibility at night, competitive price, and environmental friendliness.
• Solvent-based chlorinated rubber– these striping paints are more costly than water-based acrylics but can tolerate a wide temperature range. They also dry quicker hence preferred in colder environments.
• Reflective paints– have beads that light up when hit by your car’s headlights. They’re favored in hospitals, airports, and parking lots that fill up quickly so that the lot can accommodate as many cars as possible, especially at night.
• Thermoplastic paints– these striping paints are durable and thick looking with a little bit of height to them. They’re one of the most costly striping paints but can sustain more impact.
• Oil-based paints– because of their negative environmental impact, these paints are banned in most states, but it’s the most durable of all striping paints.
4 – Condition of your parking lot
The condition of your parking lot can deteriorate, leading to the formation of cracks and potholes. When proper maintenance of asphalt is done, it can lead to the blackening out of your line stripes. As such, you’ll need to restripe your lot when you repair cracks and potholes. You can also use this opportunity to improve your lot’s layout and enhance its moving space.
5 – Traffic flow
When car tires come into contact with your striping paint, they chip it away, resulting in faded line stripes. Since this phenomenon is more common in parking lots with high traffic flow, you have to do regular restriping compared to parking lots with low traffic flow.
6 – Selling your property
Freshly restriped parking lots significantly improve the value of a property. If you’re putting your commercial property up for sale, it’s good practice to refresh the parking lot striping before listing.
This can help you flip a sale on your property by enhancing the appearance of the property.
4 Benefits of parking lot restriping
1 – ADA compliance
To comply with the American Disability Act (ADA), business owners and property managers must provide a parking lot for people with disability. This is to ensure that disabled individuals can easily access your property. Keeping the property ADA-compliant demonstrates inclusivity, making it attractive to different clients.
Apart from ensuring that your property has accessible stalls and is wheelchair accessible, you can make it ADA-compliant by having parking lots reserved solely for the disabled.
However, over time, the striping paint and the line striping on the parking lots may fade due to weather elements and low traffic, making it difficult for clients to differentiate the reserved parking lots for the disabled. This may lead to confusion between customers and result in potential losses for your business.
Businesses can avoid these losses by doing regular parking lot striping as soon as the striping paint and lines start to fade.
2 – Improved appearance
The first impression matters, especially for businesses trying to attract new customers. Parking lot restriping and maintenance can help keep a parking lot looking smooth and visually appealing, attracting customers to your business.
If line striping and striping paint are faded, they’ll present a ‘don’t care attitude’ to the customers. This will make potential customers take their business elsewhere, hurting revenue goals.
3 – Fire code compliance
Commercial buildings are legally bound to have a parking lot for fire emergencies. This ensures that your property is easily accessible by the fire department in case of a fire emergency.
As such, the designated fire lane should have the appropriate signs, pavement markings, and curb markings to be fire code compliant. A professional crew can help restripe the parking lot to stay compliant.
4 – Save money with safety.
By labeling a parking lot with stop signs, parking lines, and the direction of traffic movement, you not only improve your lot’s traffic flow but also avoid non-fatal car accidents, which can be costly.
Failure to have your parking lot labeled can get you sued for negligence, making you lose $100,000-$1,000,000 in lawsuits. And that’s just the cost for a single person. Just imagine how much more you’d lose if several people were injured. Wouldn’t you shut down?
When you compare this cost with the cost of restriping your parking lot, it’s better to restripe it today.
Wrapping up
A well-marked parking lot improves customers’ perception by enhancing their parking experience. It lets your clients know that you care for their parking needs, thus, attracting and growing your customer base, revenue, and brand perception.
However, restriping your parking lot and improving its layout can be challenging. It must be done by a professional crew with extensive experience in parking lot maintenance. If you’re ready to restripe your parking lot today, contact Saguaro Asphalt’s parking lot striping service for a free estimate.
