TL;DR
Coal tar sealer is a driveway and parking lot coating made from refined coal tar pitch emulsified with clay and water, prized for decades for its resistance to gasoline, oil, and UV fading. It cures to a hard charcoal-black film but carries very high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which wash into soil and waterways, so a growing list of states and municipalities ban its sale and use.
What it means
Coal tar sealer is a driveway and parking lot coating made from refined coal tar pitch emulsified with clay and water, prized for decades for its resistance to gasoline, oil, and UV fading. It cures to a hard charcoal-black film but carries very high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which wash into soil and waterways, so a growing list of states and municipalities ban its sale and use. Where prohibited, contractors substitute asphalt-emulsion sealers, which need slightly more frequent reapplication.
Where it sits in the glossary
Coal tar sealer is part of the Trade jargon group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
License: CC-BY-4.0 — quote freely with attribution to ProFix Editorial Team / ProFix Directory.