While your driveway was built to last for many years, there are practices that you can carry out to ensure that it’ll last even longer. These activities are even more critical for specific seasons, such as winter, to ensure that your driveway comes out undamaged and intact from all the snow. We may be entering spring, but if you failed to take the right measures to protect your driveway over the past few months, you may be seeing some signs of wear and tear. Keep in mind that ignoring any regular maintenance on your driveway will severely impact its lifespan, causing it to crack and break quicker than you’d like.
In this article, we will share with you three tips on how you can take care of your driveway next winter to ensure you don’t make the same mistakes as you did this year:
1. Avoid ploughing services
When there’s plenty of snow to be gotten rid of, you might opt for a ploughing service to do the job for you. While this is extremely helpful at times, it should only be a last resort because ploughing services can actually damage your driveway.
These huge machines use plenty of force to clear snow, especially if there’s lots of snow. In other words, these machines can accidentally dig up your driveway instead or damage the surface. Once you do opt for a ploughing surface, check the surface after the treatment. If you notice no damage at all, feel free to continue using the service. If you do notice some damage, however, stop and do the snow ploughing by hand or pay someone else to do it for you.
2. Remove the salts
When you notice ice patches on your driveway, you might be tempted to add some salt to it to melt the ice quicker. While it might be effective in doing that, it can actually cause more problems for your driveways, especially if the driveway is less than a year old.
If you leave salt on a young driveway, it might start to crack and break, something which you do not want to happen. For you to continue using salt on your driveway without the adverse effects, it is highly recommended that you power wash the salts away, especially if you salt the surface frequently. However, power washing during winter is quite counter-productive, so try to limit or avoid using salt entirely.
3. Clear the snow
While this might seem like an obvious step, some people, while clearing out the snow off their driveways, perform it too late. For example, if you have no reason to leave your home for a week, you might leave the driveway covered for that same amount of time. Unfortunately, doing this can seriously harm your driveway.
When snow is left on the surface, it inevitably melts. As the snow melts, the liquid then seeps into the minuscule cracks in the driveway, which will expand and crack the driveway severely when it freezes.
We’re not telling you to clear your driveway every five minutes, especially in the middle of a snowstorm. However, we’re telling you to clean it whenever you can to minimize the risk of cracked driveways.
Conclusion
When winter comes around, remember the tips we’ve shared with you in this article. That way, your driveway will remain safe and intact throughout the cold season, saving you hundreds even thousands of pounds to repair or even replace a damaged driveway. If your driveway does get damaged, remember that you can always hire professionals to repair the driveway or even resurface to make it brand new.
If you’re looking for professional driveway services in Cornwall, get in touch with us today to find out more about our services and how we can help you!