If you are lucky enough to own a business serviced by a private car park, you will be well aware of the importance of keeping the surface of your car park in reasonably good condition. Failure to do so can lead to a number of problems that can inconvenience both your employees and your customers, and a badly degraded car park can become a serious safety hazard. If the surface of your car park is constructed from asphalt, this generally means that you will have to have your car park profiled at some point during its working life.

What is asphalt profiling?

In simple terms, asphalt profiling involves removing and disposing of some or all of the surface of an asphalt-coated surface. This is achieved using heavy milling equipment that use rotating drums to scrape and grind away the asphalt beneath. Depending on your needs, asphalt profiling may only remove an inch or two of material from the surfaces, or can be used to completely remove the asphalt surface and expose the substrate beneath.

Why should you have my asphalt car park profiled?

There are a variety of reasons why you may want to have your asphalt car park profiled, but the following three reasons are some of the most commonly cited:

Repairing accident damage

It's often overlooked, but accidents involving vehicles can do just as much damage to the asphalt beneath the vehicles as the vehicles themselves. This is especially true if the accident provokes a fire, and melted, distorted asphalt can pose a serious trip hazard. It can also damage components on the underside of vehicles.

Having an accident-damaged car park profiled is one of the most common and effective ways to repair this damage, largely because of the versatility of the method. Depending on the severeity of the damage, different thicknesses of asphalt can be removed and replaced, ensuring that no hidden damage remains to cause you headaches down the line.

Improving drainage

Because conventional asphalt is non-porous (although porous varieties are available), the way water drains away from your car park into dedicated drains and channels must be carefully monitored. If your car park has any significant depressions or uneven portions, rainwater can rapidly pool on the surface of your car park, reducing traction for the vehicles that use your car park and creating unwelcome slip hazards for pedestrians.

Asphalt profiling can be used to prevent standing water in your car park by levelling out these depressions and imperfections in your asphalt, allowing rainwater to drain away more readily. If your car park's drainage facilities are located on one side of the car park, having the asphalt profiled so it slopes slightly towards the drains can greatly speed up water drainage, without posing a hazard to pedestrians or vehicles.

Removing degraded surface asphalt

Asphalt is an enormously durable material, and an asphalt car park can generally stand up to years of use and abuse without showing the signs. However, any asphalt car park will eventually start to degrade, and this usually starts with a phenomenon called ravelling. When ravelling occurs, sections of asphalt on the exposed surface of your car park become loosened from the binding materials beneath, leaving chunks of loose, cracked asphalt lying on the surface of the car park.

As you can imagine, these chunks of asphalt debris can be dangerous, and they can also be an unpleasant eyesore. By having the degraded surface of your aging car park profiled, you can remove trouble spots while keeping the material beneath, allowing the car park to resurfaced at a fraction of the cost of completely demolishing and replacing it.

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