Industrial Parking Lot PavingOrlando, Florida
Fresh asphalt going down in the truck yard of an industrial plant in Orlando, with tandem rollers working the new mat beside the old surface. Both photos on this page were taken during the work.
Project at a glance
- Location
- Orlando, Orange County
- Property
- Industrial plant
- Scope
- Truck yard and drive lane paving
- Equipment
- Tandem and pneumatic rollers
The Loads
What makes an industrial lot harder to pave than a store parking lot?
The loads. Loaded trucks put weight on pavement that a car never will, and they turn while loaded, which shoves asphalt sideways.
In this frame a Cat tandem roller works the new mat through a turn, with the old surface in the foreground cracked and patched and the dock area just beyond it. Turns are the weak spot of any truck yard, so the mat has to be even in thickness and rolled tight all the way through the curve.
Orlando's industrial districts, such as Orlando Central Park off Sand Lake Road, move product around the clock, and a failed yard costs the operator real money. For a plant like this, M&S Asphalt Paving approaches it as heavy duty commercial asphalt paving, not a bigger parking lot. A yard that ruts or cracks in year two cannot be fixed over a weekend, because the trucks keep coming. So the base matters.
Working Around The Plant
How do you pave a working plant without shutting it down?
In phases, and with the plant manager at the table. Trucks still have to load, so we pave the yard in sections. Planning comes first. Paving is the easy part.
In the far view you can see the new mat at the front, a second roller near the dock and a dump truck waiting at the left. The yellow sign near the corner is part of the plant's own safety rules, and those apply to our crew from the first truck. A plant like this does not give you a quiet day, so we plan the order of the sections around its deliveries. Some of it is fiddly work, like keeping a dump truck out of a loading lane at the minute a delivery arrives.
Not every part of the yard needs paving. Some areas only need patching, and we say so up front. See crack filling and repairs for what a repair can do and where it stops, because the honest answer saves the operator money.
Opening The Yard
How long before trucks can drive on the new surface?
Until the mat has cooled through, and not before. We tell you when.
Hot mix leaves the truck at several hundred degrees, and a summer day in Orlando keeps it warm far longer than a day in January. Turning a loaded truck on warm asphalt leaves scuffs and ruts that stay. Start the heavy traffic too soon and the first week of use writes its pattern into the surface for good. The wait is short compared with the life of the yard.
We open the yard section by section, and the sections we paved first open first. If your property is anywhere in Orange County, our asphalt paving in Orlando page lists what we handle across the city, from driveways to plants like this one. Ask us which sections open first and plan your deliveries around that. A good schedule beats a fast one, because the plant loses less to a day of waiting than to a month of repairs.
Want to see another commercial job?
The Orlando shopping complex build starts earlier, with the site cut to grade and the spoil hauled out before any asphalt went down.
Does your plant or warehouse lot need paving without a shutdown?
Call and tell us how the trucks move through the site. We walk the yard with you, plan the sections around your deliveries, and give you a straight price with the scope written out, in English or Spanish.
Call us today (386) 215-7466