Clearly the economic woes have taken their toll on facility managers' budgets. Not only have expansion plans been tabled but normal day to day maintenance budgets for parking lots, roads and other structural surfaces have been slashed as well. It is not uncommon these days to see deteriorating conditions in parking lots getting worse because managers no longer have the resources to maximize the life of their existing facilities by doing adequate preventative maintenance.
The problem that these managers will bump up against is that the law of diminishing returns is clearly exacerbated by unprecedented inflationary factors. While the cost of oil has gone down, the cost of asphalt still is maintaining itself much higher than in the past. The net result is that if a parking lot is allowed to deteriorate beyond a certain point the costs for repair will go up exponentially.
Gone are the days of cheap overlays or large patches. Facility managers now must rely on more and better preventative maintenance rather than allow the parking lots to deteriorate to bad conditions. The adage "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" has never been so true especially when it comes to asphalt. Protect your precious investment or it will begin to cost you a lot of money. If managers want to save money they should carefully choose a contractor that will help them to get the most for their dollar. Repairs and preventative maintenance that does not hold up will simply result in wasted effort and lead to a much larger repair than you had the first time.
Paul
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