Pavement Striping – A Guide To Professional Services
There are several reasons why pavement striping is crucial for any road or parking lot project.
Pavement striping ensures the safety of pedestrians and drivers within your premises, controls the way in which traffic flows to help prevent accidents, maximizes parking space, and improves curb appeal.
Of course, there are many considerations to make if you are planning on hiring someone to stripe your asphalt, pavement, or parking lot. Continue reading to learn more.
What Is Pavement Striping?
In its simplest terms, pavement striping is the process of painting lines on the pavement, such as a road, parking lot, or another surface. We pavement stripe to let people know where to go and set boundaries on otherwise wide-open spaces.
Asphalt and Concrete Striping
There are many reasons why parking lot managers or road builders make a point of the importance of asphalt and concrete striping.
Let’s look at a few reasons why a good striping job is so important.
A Good Striping Job Can Eliminate Confusion
Try, if you can, to imagine a large parking lot without any lines.
It would be an incredibly difficult parking lot to navigate.
If you’ve ever experienced a parking lot that was really difficult to navigate due to the fact that it wasn’t well-marked, then you already know how handy a well-thought-out striping solution can be. These kinds of marks can eliminate confusion and solve any navigation problems.
A Good Striping Job Can Increase Efficiency
Trying to navigate a very busy parking lot can be stressful, especially when there are tons of other vehicles. A good striping job can be an essential part of a well-planned lot.
It’s important that drifters and pedestrians can enter your parking lot, easily navigate it, and exit without getting into any accidents.
It also saves people from meandering around a parking lot when it’s crowded, wondering if they are even going the correct way, to begin with. If you own a parking lot attached to your establishment, the last thing you want is a bunch of confused customers who are feeling stressed before they even walk through your doors!
A Good Striping Job Follows Regulations
There are unique rules in each state, ensuring businesses are accessible to all people. Businesses have to follow strict parking lot guidelines so as to not discriminate against any customers.
Business owners have to comply with these rules and regulations unless they want to face fines. With a striping job from a professional service, you can bet that your parking lot will be up to code. Ensuring the accessibility of your business is not only an issue of compliance, but it is also great business.
How Do You Paint Lines On The Pavement?
While you certainly could paint lines on the pavement by hand, many striping companies will use new technology like striping machines to do a professional job. These machines are far more accurate than painting by hand.
Here are a few technologies that companies will often use for concrete striping.
Spray Shields
If you’re painting in an area with a lot of wind, spray shields can be helpful. Even high-end striping machines are vulnerable to wind. All it takes is a gust of wind for the paint exiting the machine to change its stream and leave uneven marks all over the surface.
Spray shields are there to protect the paint from the wind to make sure that the stream is uninterrupted with each spray.
Reflective Bead Dispensers
One of the best additions to parking lot stripes is reflective beads. They work to increase visibility for pedestrians and drivers at night. You can attach a reflective bead dispenser to a striping machine, eliminating the need to perform this method manually, which can improve your results and save you tons of time.
Laser Guides
To create a high-quality, professional-looking parking lot, you’ll need to replace faded or dull lines. Of course, without the right tools, this process can be quite difficult. To ensure the best result each time, we recommend utilizing laser guides.
Laser guides work by outlining the location of each new line with a laser beam to make sure things are even and straight.
What Kind Of Paint Do You Use On Pavement?
The longevity of your striping job has a lot to do with the kind of paint that you are using on the job.
There are a few different kinds of paint that you can use to paint on pavement. These include:
Oil or Solvent-Based Paint
Oil or solvent-based paint uses oil rather than water. This type of paint is one of the most popular for this application, as it offers supreme durability for how much it costs. Plus, unlike some other types of paints, such as water-based paint, it won’t even freeze in extremely cold weather conditions.
Water-Based Paint
Water-based paint is mostly made of water. It is the least expensive paint that you can find and the most environmentally friendly. If you’re on a tight budget, water-based paint is one of the best choices. It’s also one of the fastest-drying types of paint out there.
However, it’s worth noting that it is not very durable.
Thermoplastic Paint
Thermoplastic paint is one of the most durable paint options out there, thanks to the fact that it contains plastics. It is very expensive, however.
Canned Aerosol Line Striping Paint
You can use aerosol line striping paint with a line striping machine to paint your parking lot with ease. With these kinds of canisters, it’s easy to get professional results. If you’re someone who is looking to maintain their parking lot after the initial job is done, having these tools is a great choice.
How Long Does Pavement Paint Last?
In an ideal situation, striping paint can last for several decades. Of course, this depends on a number of factors, such as the quality of the paint, the volume of traffic, the weather, etc. If durability and longevity are what you’re after, we recommend starting with a higher-quality paint, such as thermoplastic paint.
Pavement Striping Services
Finding vetted, high-quality striping services can be tough, especially if you’ve never performed a job like this before. Luckily, here at Paving Finder, we have a list of paving companies that you can search through, each of which has been carefully selected.
Make sure to check out these pavement striping companies on our companies page.
Benefits Of Using Line Striping and Pavement Marking Services
Beyond eliminating confusion, increasing efficiency, and making navigation more manageable, one of the main benefits of using professional line striping and pavement marking services that we want to accentuate is safety.
The last thing you want is to be liable for an accident because you cut corners when designing your parking lot.
Parking lot accidents might seem few and far between, though they can still cost people tons of time and money, not to mention the stress of getting into an accident in the first place.
With clearly marked and professional parking lot striping, you can prevent some of these accidents from happening, keeping your customers and employees safe. Of course, the adjacent benefit is that you save yourself from potential litigation in the case of an accident. If you have a parking lot that is marked clearly, then you can ensure any accidents that take place are not your fault.
It’s also important to note that a professional line striping job can increase curb appeal.
Parking lots that have crisp and clear pavement striping look great!
It’s important to be aware of how much first impressions matter in a business. Even before customers walk in through the front door of your establishment, they’ll judge you based on your parking lot. If they see tons of chipping and faded lines, they’ll think about how unprofessional and unattractive your business is before they even get a chance to see it.
Final Thoughts – Keeping Your Parking Lot In Line
As you can see, pavement striping is crucial for making sure people have a positive experience in your business. Hiring a professional paving service can ensure that people continue coming back again and again.
It’s worth noting that pavement striping is not an easy job by any means. A good pavement striper knows about the design and layout of parking lots, ADA requirements, different types of paint, and much more.
Hiring a competent striper who can provide reliable equipment and professional layout plans is crucial to getting a job done correctly. It’s worth hiring a reputable service if you want to have a positive experience.
If you have any further questions regarding striping or paving, make sure to get in touch with us here at Paving Finder. You can also check out our long list of blogs for expert paving advice!
