Make Sure Your Pavement Markings Last

When it comes to pavement marking, most of us think a stripe is a stripe. Well that is not exactly the case. What’s obvious to everyone about pavement marking is the quality of the install…meaning how well the painter stayed on course or how clean the lines are. But what is just as important as having clean straight lines is having a job that will last. Making the job last depends on a few things such as how much paint gets put down on the surface, how fast it dries and how tough the coating is.

There are many types of products on the market for marking pavement. Most manufactures have a full line of coating types such as water based latex, oil based alkyds, acetone acrylics and 2 component epoxies just to name a few. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. The trick is to know what’s going to be best for your particular application.

As far as parking lots go, there are few that get the amount of traffic in such a short period of time as a QSR and to make matters worse, most need to be reopened shortly after being striped. This short cure time means that cars will be driving over the coated surface before its 100% cured and ready for the punishment. Given the unique situation that restaurants are faced with, there is only one product that meets every need. That product is an acetone acrylic. Acetone acrylic gets very hard, very fast and dries in seconds. The hardness will allow it to hold up well to the constant pounding that a QSR takes every few minutes for 12+ hours a day. This Product is very flammable and difficult to work with, so it is not very widely used. But having striped over 3,000 QSR parking lots, I can assure you that there is nothing on the market that even comes close to solving all the issues as well as acetone acrylic.

A good way to keep up on your lot maintence is to have the lot striped on pre-determined increments. This would offer a system where the lot maintenance is part of a reoccurring system and not as a call in or an as needed item. As you well know, lot striping is one of those things that may get over looked very easily. Some lots need to be recoated every 3 months and others can go 1 to 2 years, depending on the amount of traffic they handle. This can be determined based on information provided by site survey and/or discussion with the onsite management of the facility.