How to Remove Old Road Markings

Road markings become blurred and fall off after a period of exposure to wind and sun, or due to site changes, the original markings can no longer provide good road guidance. At this time, the original road marking paint needs to be removed. If the old markings are not cleaned up, they may mislead drivers and are very detrimental to traffic safety. Therefore, you must choose the right method to remove the markings.

1. High-pressure water gun flushing method
It uses a high-pressure water gun to impact the marking film，but it requires a high-pressure water pump, spray gun and flushing water. It is suitable for removing solvent-based, hot melt spray-type and waterborne markings, and is generally used to remove large-area old lines.

2. Manual removal method
Use tools such as axes and trowels to directly cut off the markings. However, it is labor-intensive, inefficient, and not very thorough. The advantage is that it only requires manual labor and is less costly.

3. Grinding removal method
The principle of the grinding removal method is to use a power device to drive the alloy grinding blade to rotate at high speed, so that the blade fully contacts and grinds with the road marking to achieve the purpose of removal. It is suitable for cement concrete pavement and asphalt pavement. This method is simple and easy to operate, so it is often used in urban operations with relatively large traffic flow interference.

4. Painting method
Painting black paint on the old markings is the simplest and fastest method. However, as the paint wears off, the old markings will be exposed again. So it is only a temporary method.

5. Sand blasting method
Sand blasting is a method of cleaning the surface of the material by propelling  abrasive (steel sand, quartz sand, iron sand, etc.) at high speed through a nozzle. This method has low removal efficiency, high construction difficulty and high cost.

6. Heating Removal Method
If you need to remove a road marking reflective paints that has just been constructed, you can heat the road marking paint to soften it, and then shovel it up with a shovel. However, it is not clean and can easily contaminate the road surface. It is only suitable for thicker hot-melt road markings.
The ultimate purpose of installing and maintaining road markings is to improve road safety; for this, high-quality raw traffic safety materials are essential.

As a leading manufacturer of traffic safety materials with more than 30 years’ experience, Anhui Tory is committed to ongoing product development and excellent customer services that makes us the perfect partner for your road marking paint supply needs. We can provide you with raw materials (such as road marking glass beads, MMA resin, AW element , colored anti-slip aggregates etc.) with very competitive prices which can be customized to meet the specific requirements of customers and projects.