In the pavement maintenance business, we often don’t associate ourselves with extravagances, especially when there’s black sealant involved. However, even luxury vehicle centers need their pavement maintained, and it’s up to those of us in the industry to make sure our precision and experience protects these valuable assets, and our reputation.
“Any time you’re working around brand new luxury vehicles, there are going to be challenges,” Andy Jackson, owner of SouthTex Asphalt says. “We were just ‘lucky’ enough on this project that the vehicles were just one of the many obstacles we had to overcome.”
While SouthTex has a 25 year relationship maintaining this particular lot in Houston, TX, they have never encountered the challenges they saw on the project this year. Not only did the crew at SouthTex sealcoat and stripe one-third of the 82 acre facility in 35 days, they completed the work despite paint shortages, weather delays and high customer demand, winning them Pavement’s 2022 Seal & Stripe Large Job award.
Intricate Phasing
In the Summer of 2021, the facility manager contacted SouthTex to complete the pavement maintenance work that was needed. Jackson and his team advised them to wait to do the work until later in the Fall to take advantage of the more moderate weather conditions.
“Texas had experienced a very wet and very hot summer, so we wanted to wait to complete this massive project until later in the year,” Jackson says. “This would allow the pavement the proper curing temperature and also decrease the chances of weather delays for the intricate work.”
To maintain operation of the vehicle processing center, which is a holding area for high-end vehicles before they are transported to their final destination, the SouthTex crew had to complete the work in several different phases.
“Fortunately, the amount of vehicles being processed were lower than usual due to the chip shortage,” Jackson says. “We've worked out here before and the facility literally had no room, but they were able to give us basically a fifth of the project at a time. This allowed us to take care of larger sections.”
The entire facility will be sealcoated in three separate phases over time. In phase one, which was performed during 2021, the project was broken down into five different sections, each averaging 300,000 square feet.
The crews cleaned each section with a Broce Broom Sweeper and a Buffalo Turbine Blower on a LineDriver. They also used two Billy Goat blowers for the detail work.
“The lot was very very dirty,” Jackson adds. “We worked hard to get it clean and we hauled the dirt and debris offsite once it was picked up by our crews.”
To complete the sealcoating, the crew used the spray method to apply two coats of sealer using two 1500-gal. truck mounted spray rigs.
“The wind was the biggest concern in doing this,” Jackson says. “ We had to be very conscientious on where the wind was heading and how strong it was. It could be a beautiful, perfect day, but if the wind was coming in at 15-20 miles per hour right towards where all the cars are parked, that’s a problem.
“When we were spraying, we had to be keenly aware of what the wind was doing and how strong it would be,” he adds. “We would look at the forecast as best we could and find out where the wind was going to go that day, and we would make sure to coordinate with the facility managers there and let them know where not to park the cars based on the wind.”
To keep the crews moving while using massive amounts of sealer, SouthTex relied on their SealMaster dealer.
“SealMaster of Houston would bring out 3900 gallons of mixed material,” Jackson said. “The latex, the sand and the water were already mixed and then brought to us. We would be able to empty out one tank in the morning and they would bring us another batch in the afternoon or early the following morning so we could get right back in action. Because of this, we didn't have to waste time loading up on site with sand, water, etc. and it made a huge difference in our production. SealMaster of Houston was fantastic and was a wonderful partner on this project.”
In all, SouthTex put down 47,000 gallons of sealer on this phase of the project.
Scary Striping Situation
The Nationwide shortage of materials, from toilet paper to steel, did not miss the pavement maintenance industry. A resin shortage caused severe paint shortages throughout the industry, but particularly in Texas where manufacturing facilities were shut down due to COVID and weather. The shortage was so bad, SouthTex was almost unable to bid this job.
“That was a really scary situation,” Jackson says. “The only way that we would have been able to do this job was if we could secure enough paint to do the job right. The facility owner would not have been interested if we said we could seal it, but not stripe it. This whole project was contingent upon ‘can we get the paint?’”
Fortunately SealMaster of Houston came through again for SouthTex and was able to get an allotment of paint, enough to complete this job.
“That was a huge, huge help to us,” Jackson says. “Not only that they were able to find and secure the paint for us, but also store it for us until we were ready to use it. That allowed the job to move forward.”
Once the paint was secured and the lot sealed, the crews came back in to complete the striping, which caused yet another set of challenges.
“They wanted to increase the width of each parking stall during this re-stripe,” Jackson said. “We had to essentially lay out the entire parking lot again as we weren't able to follow the existing stripes.”
As this process began, the lot started to get busier as more cars were coming in.
“We had to lay it out and stripe it in a timely fashion to where we could move on to the next section,” Jackson adds. “We wanted to reduce or eliminate any delays that we could possibly have and so that was a challenge that put pressure on the striping crew to lay it out and get it done so that we could move on to the next section and they could bring more cars in.”
In all, 94 buckets of paint was put down and this section of the project was completed in 35 days from start to finish.
