Emergency Parking Lot Services

One of the services offered at Wheeler Painting and Restoration Services is parking lot striping. Many of our commercial accounts; banks, schools, office buildings, restaurants, etc. have used our parking lot striping services.  Over time existing striping fades and needs re-application of paint or maybe the client is looking to add ADA parking stalls or to create a “cross walk” with new parking lot markings – all of this we can help with. 

Parking lot striping can be a little tricky due to all the logistic work that goes into closing off the area to be striped, cleaning of the area, paint application and then leaving the area closed off to traffic while the paint dries.  Of course, there are those who ignore cones and caution tape and will always drive through your freshly painted parking lot before it is dry.  In order to avoid traffic breaking through barriers left in place while paint dries, we often times will leave a few crew members onsite, parked at the entrances to help detour those set on driving through freshly painted lines.

Recently our crew found themselves performing “emergency parking lot services” for a project that had nothing to do with parking lot re-striping.  We were hired by a local restaurant to address some exterior improvements and to repaint their building to update their corporate brand colors.  There was a small parking area in the back of the building that had just received new asphalt and a coat of black sealer.  Our professional painters had just moved to the back of the building and were painting.  The restaurant owner’s wife came to the restaurant and proceeded to park in this back area and was not paying attention to the activities that were happening in this back area.  Needless to say, the owner’s wife swung wide, driving through the bark in the landscape planting area.  Before anyone could flag her down to point out she was not driving on the asphalt, she ran over 4 gallons of paint and proceeded to drive the spilled paint over the newly paved area.  The paint was a full-body orange color that stood out proudly against the new black asphalt.  Talk about a mess!  The paint was on the asphalt, on the car, on the tires and quickly getting everywhere.   Once the crew was able to get the car to stop moving, it was revealed to the driver that she was “re-striping” the back parking lot.  Such a sweet lady, but boy was she embarrassed.

What does one do in a situation like this?  It was not in our bid to clean a parking lot, but our crews are team players who always want to do their best for our clients.  The entire job site stopped working on the approved scope of work and everyone jumped into action to go above and beyond to take care of this “stripping of the parking lot” that was not on our agenda for the day.  The car was cleaned, the tires were cleaned, the car was moved and the entire back parking area was cleaned up in a timely manner so there was no staining on the new asphalt.  When we stripe a parking lot, we typically use white paint, not orange, but after seeing the stark contrast between the new black asphalt and the vibrant orange, we just might start marketing orange striping to our clients. 

It’s not every day that our professional crews need to stop their work to address the mistake of someone else, but we will go the extra mile for our clients. Parking lot striping goes far better when it is a planned project than an “emergency service” project but whatever your project is, we can help if you give us a call today.

Until the next funny story in the Adventures at Wheeler Painting and Restoration Services, be well and do good.