Welcome back to another article in your journey towards understanding more about asphalt installation and maintenance. In this weeks article, we will go into great detail regarding which times of year you “should” install seal coat. Let us dive straight into it.

In order to understand why we seal coat during certain months, we have to teach you the best conditions in which seal coat should be installed. The following conditions must be met:

1.) The air temperature must be 55 degrees Fahrenheit and rising from the point of installation. Generally speaking we want to maintain this 55 degree temperature throughout the drying process. The drying process can last anywhere from two to eight hours. Please note, we call this the drying time not the curing time. After drying, you will be able to open up the roadway within the next 24 hours.

Please be advised, even though the seal coat is dried it will continue to cure for the next 30 days.

2.) The second condition is to install seal coat during times of no rain. More specifically, it is best to wait at least 48-72 hours after a heavy storm to install seal coat. On the other hand, it is important that seal coat should not be installed if a rain storm is expected within 48-72 hours after the seal coat is installed.

There are a few other conditions that we consider while seal coating in Las Vegas, however we will talk about these at the end of this article.

Now that we understand the two important conditions that must be met, we can now conclude the timeline within the year that we install seal coat here in Las Vegas in order to provide our clients with the best product. The time when the seal coat season starts is around the beginning of March; however we again must not seal coat during the rainy season. If early appearance of rain systems show, we then push all projects back to the beginning of April. From, here were are all good to go until the temperatures start dropping in mid-late November.

There are a total of 8-9 great months that you should plan to seal coat your properties here in Las Vegas. Be sure to plan ahead and get your project bid out and approved sooner than later as you some companies fill up there schedules as early as May or June leaving and clients searching for asphalt sealcoating left waiting until the next year or “seal coat season” as we call it comes around.

Earlier, I mentioned that there are some other conditions that you need to be aware of when installing seal coat. Here in Las Vegas the surface temperatures can reach up to 122 degrees here in Las Vegas, Nevada according to NASA’s ECOSTRESS Sees Las Vegas Streets Turn Up the Heat. Sealcoating during such conditions will cause the seal coat material to dry almost instantly which evaporates not only essential moistures held in the clays and solids but also prevents the glue from penetrating and binding to the asphalt properly. A good contractor will never install asphalt without applying water to the surface first. Watering the surface will greatly reduce the surface temperatures and allow the product to have the best conditions possible to install seal coat during extremely hot months of the Las Vegas’ summers.