The Dirty Little Secret about Parking Lot Runoff
I had a brief conversation with Aaron Mayer of On Site Commercial Services; a state licensed company that serves all of California. (Give him a call at (925) 415-0075 or visit www.weareonsite.com if you want to get a specific quote on your asphalt needs) There are some parameters that can be applied to asphalt. He says he tells people all the time to be careful about irrigation runoff.
Gets the facts about Parking Lot Runoff and how FS Commercial Landscape can help:
One can assume that the cost for patching 80 to 90 square feet is approximately $500 to $600. That is more than $5.00 per square foot! In addition, the cost for sealing the entire lot, to give a consistent appearance is 7 to 13 cents a square foot plus the cost of re-striping. Run the numbers for your own lot, but it is easy to see that asphalt repair can be very expensive.
There are also other costs:
- Base rock can be damaged by big trucks on soft asphalt caused by irrigation runoff. That can add to the cost of repair.
- The parking lot will be closed for the day or more it takes to affect the repairs.
- Striping, if necessary, will add to the overall cost.
Your cost may vary, but the cost of repairing asphalt should not be overlooked when considering parking lot runoff and the cost associated with landscaping and irrigation.
What about rain? It rains up to 63 days a year in San Francisco (.1” or more). Irrigation runoff happens over five times that often and can cause a lot more damage.
Why rush it? Eventually, parking lot repairs will be necessary but what’s the hurry? Irrigation runoff can mean that the parking lot will have to be repaired years sooner and more extensively than it should.
FS is different from others. Each landscape crew is charged with monitoring water use. Each has a camera-phone and reports to the irrigation specialist each time he visits your site as to the condition of the irrigation system, and to the client if necessary. Your site is visited regularly by the irrigation specialist to repair and/or adjust the system. The result can be the savings of hundreds of dollars a month just on water usage alone. (We saved HHH Investments over $1,000 a month at Hite Plaza in Dublin.)The savings on parking lot repair is more difficult to assign, but can be much more significant. That is the dirty little secret!
