Sealcoating your driveway is a cost-effective, and yet simple way to protect, and lengthen the lifespan of your driveway. Any asphalt paved surface is prone to wear and tear—thanks to the weather, as well as traffic. Your driveway is not different from this.
Unfortunately, the quality of asphalt used on driveways is a bit lower—meaning driveways are more susceptible to potholes and cracks. This calls for regular sealcoating, as it helps in protecting the driveways, as well as prolonging their life.
Importance of sealcoating your driveway
Sealcoating a driveway allows you to give it an extra layer of protection, thus allowing it to resist deterioration and last longer. When you sealcoat your driveway, you protect it from water. This is one of the worst enemies of asphalt driveways. Apart from water, sealcoating also protects asphalt driveways from other things like cracking, chemicals, as well as oil and gasoline spills.
Generally, you should always sealcoat your driveway after every 2 years. This will help you to prevent erosion and damage to the driveway. This, also, is one of the cheapest ways to keep your driveway in a good condition.
With this, comes one question—when is the best time to sealcoat my driveway?
The best time to sealcoat a driveway
Typically, the summer season is the ideal time to sealcoat an asphalt paved driveway. The temperatures during this season are ambient, with low humidity, thus creating the perfect weather for sealcoating. Both humidity and temperature play an essential role when sealing asphalt. These two factors greatly determine how long it will take the sealer to dry and cure.
Thus, it’s not a must that you seal your asphalt during the summertime. However, it’s the best time of the year to get the job done. Today, we have numerous sealcoating options, which are suitable for different temperature settings. Therefore, you must understand the type of sealant you want to use. This will help you in determining whether you want to sealcoat your driveway in warm weather or cold weather.
Why summertime?
The primary reason why you should sealcoat your driveway in the summer season is that warm weather allows asphalt to cure faster. Today, most people cannot wait more than 1 day for their driveways to cure fully.
As we said earlier, summer has warm weather and low humidity. These two factors will allow your driveway to dry and cure faster than any other time. If you opt to sealcoat your driveway on a day with temperatures below 50 degrees, you might have to wait for an average of 48 – 72 hours for the driveway to be accessible.
Keep in mind that using your driveway when it’s not fully dry and cured risks after sealcoating risks damaging it. This can also affect the lifespan of the driveway. However, when the driveway is fully cured, you can park or drive on it without worrying whether or not you will mess up things.
Watch out for the weather conditions
According to Florida sealcoating experts, schedule your driveway sealcoating when you are sure you’ll have good sunshine. This is essential, as it helps in keeping the asphalt warm, and also evaporates the liquids in the sealer. It’s still fine to schedule the sealcoating on a cloudy day—so long as you are sure that there won’t be any moisture or rain for at least 24 hours.
Another important thing to put into consideration when sealcoating a driveway is the amount of shade that will cover the driveway. Typically, shaded areas will take a longer time to dry and cure compared to areas with direct sunshine.
For instance, when you start sealcoating the driveway in the afternoon, it means the entire project might go all the way into the evening. Thus, one area of the driveway might be covered by shade throughout the entire project. Therefore, it’s better that you start the sealing process in the morning, as this will allow the shady areas to dry quickly before the shade covers the area.
However, if the entire pavement is shaded, there’s nothing you can do—you’ll need to be patient and wait for it to cure naturally. But, you shouldn’t allow the shade to deter you from sealing your driveway since it’s not a big deal. Nonetheless, if you want your asphalt to dry and cure as quickly as possible, make sure that the driveway has direct sunlight.
Bottom Line
Sealcoating a driveway is an essential part of its maintenance. However, if your driveway has potholes, cracks, or any other form of damage, you must repair these issues before sealcoating the driveway. Also, you must hire a professional contractor for the project. This contractor should not only sealcoat your driveway, but they should also assess your driveway for any other needs that should be addressed before the sealcoating process starts.
