Business Owners: Make These 4 Improvements to Your Building Premises to Improve Sales

When customers visit your business, they may not notice smooth pavement, but they’ll certainly notice a broken sidewalk, driveway, or cement retainer wall. Having broken pavement around your business is a major deterrent for sales.

Customers expect businesses to keep their building and immediate surroundings in good shape. This includes all sidewalks, driveways, ramps, retainer walls, and planter boxes.

When you allow any part of your building to remain broken, customers start to perceive your premises as run down. This perception impacts your ability to generate sales.

To maintain a positive customer perception, check your business property for these 4 issues and fix them right away.

1. Cracks from heat damage 

Heat can cause extreme damage to asphalt surfaces. If your building gets a lot of sun, the cumulative effect of the heat will deteriorate certain compounds in the asphalt – resulting in cracking.

Cracked asphalt looks bad, but cracks channel water and destroy the asphalt from underneath. Since you can’t stop the sun from putting out heat, the best way to protect your asphalt is with sealcoating.

Sealcoating protects asphalt by adding a thin layer of liquid to the top of your pavement. This sealant protects your pavement from UV rays, snow, rain, and vehicle fluids.

If you already have cracks in your asphalt, fix them first before sealcoating. Once you fix the cracks and add sealcoating, you can expect it to last for around three years. However, older asphalt might need a yearly application.

2. Raised and broken asphalt or concrete from tree roots

Tree roots are a big problem for concrete and asphalt. When sidewalks are added to areas where trees aren’t contained, as the roots grow, they’ll push the material up and cause it to crack and break.

The result isn’t pretty. When your customers see this situation around your building for long, they’re going to wonder if you’ve abandoned taking care of your premises.

Get creative if there’s a tree in the middle of your walkway. Instead of removing the tree, see if you can reshape your walkway around the tree or divert the path in a different direction. If there’s no way to create an alternative path, as a last resort, remove the tree.

3. Areas that collect large puddles of water

Do you have areas in your parking lot that collect large puddles of water when it rains or when the snow melts? Pools of water affect more than just your customers who need to walk or drive through that particular area.

Water can severely damage both concrete and asphalt. However, there are several ways to fix this problem. The best solution is to have permeable pavement installed. This is a special blend of materials that drains water fast in real-time.

With permeable pavement, you don’t have to worry about water gathering from a storm. Here’s a video of permeable pavement in action from a company that sells this special material. You can see the water drains fast and doesn’t collect or spread out. It just soaks into the pavement and disappears.

4. How permeable pavement works

Both permeable asphalt and permeable concrete work similarly. The top surface material catches the water runoff and stores it underneath in a reservoir. The reservoir slowly drains the water into the soil below through a drain tile.

Permeable pavement is perfect for parking lots, driveways, and sidewalks in areas prone to minor flooding and water collection. In some cases, you won’t need a detention pond when you have permeable pavement.

As a bonus, permeable pavement traps some contaminants and prevents them from flowing into lakes, rivers, and drinking water sources.

5. Small cracks that make your premises inaccessible

You might see small cracks and uneven surfaces that you don’t believe are a big deal. However, those small cracks might make your premises inaccessible to people with disabilities.

Sidewalk cracks and uneven surfaces can make it hard, impossible, and even dangerous for wheelchairs to pass. The same is true for people who use other mobility devices like a cane or a walker.

 When your parking lot has cracks and uneven surfaces, it can be difficult for people to safely exit and enter their vehicle.

You probably don’t need to fix a crack in the middle of your parking lot where nobody parks or walks. However, make sure to fix even the smallest cracks where people are likely to walk.

Fix your broken asphalt and concrete

Keep your customers safe and happy by fixing your broken concrete and asphalt. Leaving these repairs undone creates a liability for your company and can be detrimental to your revenue.