Parking Lot Maintenance, Planned and Priced

Inspect and rate it every year or two, seal the cracks every year or two, sealcoat about every three years and restripe after every coat. SealMaster recommends sealcoating every 3 years; the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' facilities guideline says every 3 to 5 years and cracks annually. The PASER manual recommends re-rating every two years, and says an annual update is better.

It depends on the lot's size and condition. A 24,000 sq ft, 65-stall lot in good structural condition costs $6,975 for one round of crack sealing, sealcoat and restriping, and about $32,850 over ten years at that pace, $3,285 a year. The same lot needing a structural overlay first is about $73,785 over the same ten years.

It depends on the repair. Crack sealing runs $0.50-$3.00 a linear foot; digging out failed areas and patching them (remove and replace) is quoted to owners at $4-$10 a sq ft; a mill and overlay of the whole lot at $1-$3 a sq ft. On the 24,000 sq ft, 65-stall example lot, a mill and overlay prices at $57,146 from 2025 state DOT unit bids, against $6,975 for a round of crack sealing, sealcoat and stripes. The PASER rating says which one the lot needs.

SealMaster recommends every 3 years, sooner in hard winters and with a third coat in high traffic. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' facilities guideline says every 3 to 5 years with emulsion sealers, the first seal 12 to 18 months after the lot is paved.

Annually, by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' facilities guideline, for every crack wider than 1/8 inch; every 1-2 years based on inspection, by the Indian Health Service's facilities guidance. FHWA's crack seal manual says to seal working cracks shortly after they appear, in spring or fall at 7 to 18°C. On new pavement, thermal cracks appear 2 to 7 years after construction.

After every sealcoat, because the coat covers the lines; SealMaster says to let the sealer cure 24 hours before the paint goes on. Between coats it depends on traffic and plows: Asphalt Kingdom puts it about every 18 to 24 months, and yearly in snow country.

On the PASER scale, a 5 or 6 is structurally sound and needs sealcoat; a 4, with block cracking over half the surface, would benefit from a structural overlay of 2 inches or more; a 3 needs patching and milling before a major overlay. Once alligator cracking covers more than 25% of the surface (a 2), the manual calls for reconstruction.

PASER (Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating) is a 1-to-10 visual rating of asphalt from the Transportation Information Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. You walk the pavement, match what you see (cracks, raveling, ruts, alligator cracking) to the manual's descriptions, and each rating comes with the treatment it calls for: 10 is new, 1 has failed.

The agencies say so; the numbers behind the famous ratio are thinner than they look. The "$1 now saves $6 to $10 later" line comes from an example curve in TR News (2003) that cites no data. Caltrans reported $1 of preventive maintenance saving $6 of rehabilitation and $20 of reconstruction, and Michigan DOT, in FHWA's 2003 compendium, found rehabilitation and reconstruction cost 10-14 times as much as preventive work per lane mile. On a single lot the check is simpler: price both. On this page's example lot, a mill and overlay is $57,146; a round of sealcoat, cracks and stripes is $6,975.