Maintenance Checklist for Your Parking Lot

Parking lots are a large capital expense for a facility manager. Keeping your parking lot well maintained will help protect your investment and impact your customers in a positive way. But, how do you know what you should do and when?  This checklist will help you know more about a proper, effective and timely parking lot maintenance schedule:

Clean Parking Area
Regular cleaning of a parking lot or parking garage can help identify potential problems. The simple act of walking the parking area during the cleaning process and making some observations can spot small issues.  Addressing them now, can stop them from turning into bigger, most costly problems.

Parking lot cleaning can be broken into three categories – trash removal, parking lot sweeping and hydro-cleaning.

Trash Removal – Keeping empty trash receptacles in and around your facility in high traffic areas will encourage visitors to be tidier. Depending on the amount of visitors your building sees on a regular basis, you may require professional help for cleaning including porter services, janitorial services and even bulk debris removal.  Obviously, this task needs year round attention!

Parking Lot Sweeping Schedules - Parking lots should be swept weekly, year round, to remove dirt and trash. Removing this trash not only keeps your facility more attractive to visitors, but it also prevents the garbage from clogging your parking lot drains – causing standing water, and polluting the streams, lakes, and the ocean.  If you’ve run out of hours in the day to accomplish this task regularly, hire a professional company.

Hydro-Cleaning Schedules - Wash parking surfaces periodically, at least twice a year, more often if you have a high traffic area.  Spring is an excellent time of year to wash your parking area!

Hydro-cleaning removes dust, oil, and grease that can not only be tracked into your facility, but also can cause wear on your pavement.  Hydro-cleaning does not create water runoff like pressure washing. The water is actually recycled, cleaned, and reused again.

If you haven’t seen this process, watch this great video!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc8hZInOCRw

Inspect Drainage 
Standing water can penetrate into asphalt pavement and even concrete causing potential structural hazards. Now is an ideal time to clean out floor drains, basins and gutters to prevent debris from stopping drainage.

Inspect Lighting Fixtures
Broken or burned out light bulbs impact building security and the safety of your visitors. How well are your lots lit at night?

Remove Vegetation
Vegetation that grows through the cracks and seams of your asphalt paving can mean trouble. Large cracks should be filled and parking lots should be seal coated on a regular basis.  Think your parking lot may need some repairs?  We recommend contacting a professional paving company like ABC Paving and Seal Coating!  Visit their website now.

About American Facility Services 
Since 1993, American Facility Services (AFS) has built a solid reputation based on safety, quality and customer service. With offices in Orlando, Jacksonville and Tampa, AFS’ portfolio of commercial facility services enable our clients the convenience of working with a single provider for all their commercial property needs. Contact AFS today at 866-793-3735 or visit our website at http://www.afsflorida.com for an online proposal.