You state that it's 15ft long, which is roughly 4.6m (it is the 21st Century!!). So, allowing a fall of 1:60 (roughly 17mm fall per linear metre), the fall from the 'back' of the drive would be 4.6m × (1÷60) = 77mm. On the drawing below, I've shown this as the high point (A) having a datum level of 10.000 and so, with 77mm fall, the level at the footpath (B) is 9.923.

Then, as you state, there is 3inches (75mm) of fall across the width of the drive (between B+C) so this gives us a level at C of 9.923-0.075 = 9.848, which, as shown on the drawing, is a crossfall of roughly 1:48.

This then means there is an increased fall from D to C of 152mm, which is about 1:30.

Lay your soldier edgings on concrete using taut string lines to guide line and level, as described on the Laying Edgings page. At the threshold with the pavement, lay your soldier edges to the best line possible, disregarding any minor variation in level of the public footpath. Some contractors like to lay 50-150mm back from the edge of the public footpath and then infill the gap with repair macadam or a concrete fillet to take up any minor differences.

The back edge of the drive (A-D) is laid as required, and then the sides (A-B and C-D) can be laid to tie in as required. You then screed off your bedding layer using a notched screeder board. The plane of the bedding layer will 'twist' as it moves down the drive towards the public footpath, but block paving is more than capable of dealing with such a minor twist with no noticeable effect on the jointing. Honestly!

Once the bed is screeded, lay the blocks, cut-in, sand and wacker and then you can have a pint.

The maximum twist possible with block paving is phenomenol. On my own drive, I've incorporated a roll-over of 150mm over a distance of 500mm - imagine a 500x500mm square, with one 'corner' 150mm lower than the other 3. This was done to accommodate a 'dry area channel' near the damp proof course.

Software I use - TurboCad is my favourite for small jobs, either 3D Designer or v8, as it's simple and fast, but I use AutoCAD for the larger commercial jobs. The real power behind any cad system, though, is the 'library' that each designer develops over time to help build designs, and mine dates back over 10 years.

I've seen a couple of products on the market which claim to remove tyre marks from concrete pavings, but I've never tested them, so I can't say whether they're any good or not, but I'd try a power wash first and see if that helps. I wouldn't build up my hopes, though.

Tyre marks are, in my experience, almost impossible to shift. Some contractors tell me they've had reasonable results using the brick/patio cleaning products, which are all acid-based and work by attacking the concrete of the paver, rather than the rubber compound, but you have to be careful with any of the acid-based cleaners, as they can have nasty side-effects on the iron oxide based dyes used in concrete pavers.

If you do get the paving clean, and you want to avoid repetition, then maybe it'd be a good idea to consider using a sealant that will minimise any such marking.

If the blocks are fully compacted, then you don't really need to re-hire a plate, as you just need to brush in the sand when it dries out, and normal trafficking will settle it into the joints.

I'd leave the Keybond for a month or so, until the joints are filled and established. Why do you think you need it on your driveway?

Some claim they are 8 cubic yard skips: I can't argue as I don't work with antiquated imperial measurements, but I know from our own measurements on site that we can get, on average, 4.5 cubic metres of excavated material into each skip. Remember; it bulks up when dug, and 4.5 m³ taken from the ground might actually be 5 or 6 m³ when loaded into a skip.

I suppose it is more of a soft-landscaping Q than Hard-landscaping, but as I'm quite keen on gardening myself, and I've laid a few hectares of turf in my time, I reckon I can dredge up an answer.  

Sub-base beneath turf is a waste. It won't do too much harm, as long as there is plenty of soil cover, say 200-300mm, but you could use a cheaper fill material such as crusher run sandstone. Limestone won't damage the grass - some of the finest (finest as in fine-leaved) turf is grown in limestone areas.

The quality of the top-soil is more important than what you lay as a sub-base. If you can get a nice sandy loam, then 200mm or so of that will be grand.

You can extend what you have no problem, but I'd lose the plain concrete kerb otherwise it will stand out like the proverbial sore thumb. Here's a typical sequence of operations...

1 - excavate either side of drive to accommodate extra width, remembering to add 'working room' of at least 100mm

2 - lay new kerbs and/or restrained soldier edging and haunch with concrete

3 - lay sub-base

(all this means you can get the essential preparatory work done without losing use of the existing driveway until it's absolutely essential)

4 - rip out existing pcc kerb and take out and edging blocks and/or cut blocks

5 - spread, compact and screed new bedding layer of grit sand

6 - lay new blocks, working from existing paving on both edges. Piece in as required.

7 - sand and wacker the lot.

8 - retire to pub. I'll have a bucket of Boddington's, please

How's that?

When it comes to identifying blocks, send me a piccie, preferably a close up and I'll see if I can help. Alternatively, try describing them in as much detail as you can and I'll post pictures showing possibilities.

To be fair to Marshalls, the kit they use in their multi-coloured block manufacturing does occasionally throw up blocks with a predominance of one colour, but, to my eye, this makes for a better finished effect on the completed driveway than the type of blocks where all the colour variation occurs within individual blocks.

To get best effect, you really should be drawing your blocks from at least 3 packs simultaneously, and randomising them as you lay, so you don't get definite 'splotches' of colour, but a more balanced, 'mottled' effect.

Obviously, if you had a pack that was predominantly all charcoal or all reds, then the BM should, and probably would, exchange them for a more mixed pack, but from what you say, I don't think you've been sold anything out of the ordinary.

If a block paved driveway is laid following the principles outlined on my site, then it should give you at least 10 years of trouble-free service. We have areas of block paving we laid back in the early 1980s, back when block paving was still a novelty in the UK, and it's still being trafficked, day in and day out, and, although it's looking its age and could do with a good cleaning, it's still fully functional and hasn't settled, except for the patches where the cable tv gangs have ploughed through.

Get yourself a few quotes for block paving and follow the advice given on the 'Getting a Contractor' page.  

Here's a pic I took....

....they come in 4 colours : white, blue, orange and green, I think it was. More info in the new Top Pave catalogue which came out last week.

Drivelight from Marshalls are much bigger at 200x100 and much brighter. They're featured in the new Marshalls catalogue on page 61.

still at it, eh?  

Assuming this is an external radius, then there are 3 possibilities which are illustrated here. The first is to rely on untrimmed blocks, but, as you can see, you end up with a whopping 36mm wide joint, which, even if pointed with mortar, is going to look naff...

...so, assuming you decide to trim the blocks along the long edge, you could trim one edge only, which would give this sort of finish....

...or you could trim both edges, as shown below, which, in my opinion, gives a much more balanced and professional looking finish, although there are twice as many cuts to make.

Cutting blocks along the long edge is never easy, especially with a standard splitter, and you'll find it much quicker, and you'll have fewer wasted blocks, if you use a power saw, preferably one with a diamond blade.

Are you anywhere near finished yet?

Any idea of a planned finishing date yet? Is your missus still speaking to you?

I reckon you're spending too much time in the alehouse and not enough on the driveway, if the local tap-room experts are taking the piss. There's more daylight than dark, now we've passed the equinox, so there's no excuse!

Keeping a metre away from the trunk will help you avoid the worst of the shallow roots. Lay the inner and outer courses on concrete, but lay the body of the paving on a flexible construction so that water and air can still find their way to the roots of the damned tree, and all should be well (ish).

You could surface dress around the trunk with bark or a gravel to keep it looking tidy, and, given my comments on the sticky goo problem, I'd give serious thought to using a sealant to protect the blocks and make them that bit easier to clean.

Good luck!

However, are you sure you will have sufficient to pave the area under consideration, and won't run out half-way through, requiring you to find a near match or, even worse, to start again? Have you checked the number that are of serviceable quality? Have you read the page on rigid brick pavements and fully understood the amount of work involved? It's hell of a lot trickier than laying flexible block paving!

Although you can save a few quid in the cost of pavings be re-utilising these bricks, this can soon be lost in the additional costs of mortar, concrete and, most importantly, time, as rigid paving is much slower work than flexible blockwork or flagging.

I've done you a sketch showing the offsets required from a 4m chord subtended from a 13m radius arc....

...if you take A and B to be the known points you mention, then, at the mid-point of the chord, ie, 2m from either A or B, then the mowing strip needs to be offset by 154mm. If you need other intermediates, then at 1m from both A and B, the offset will be 116m.

With 3 (or 5) known points, now, eyeing in your arc of mowing strips should be relatively easy.  

Further, comparing the very limited range of kit on offer from a Hire shop doesn't give the full picture. Many Vib Rollers achieve a centrifugal force equal to or greater than a Vib Plate, but we're straying into the realm of geo-mechanics and civil engineering, when what this website is mostly concerned about is compacting a 100-225mm thick sub-base for pavement usage.

I'm not sure that I say, anywhere on the site, that a roller should be used in preference to a Vib Plate. I would agree with that statement for larger jobs, but for the vast majority of residential patios and driveways, a Vib Plate is usually more than fine, and, with the exception of the farty little Vib Plates capable of being lifted in one hand and carried in the front basket of a Kiddie's bike, most of the Vib Plates available from Hire Shops are eminently suitable to the task in hand. For contractors, I would recommend using a suitable roller when conditions allow, but for the typical DIYer or smaller job, then there's nowt wrong with relying on a Plate Compactor.

I'm surprised someone on the Self-build group hasn't bought their own Vib Plate and sold it on to a newbie once they've completed their own build. You can pick up a reasonable second hand plate for around 250 quid, which is what? around a couple of months hire? And then, when you've finished, you can sell it on for 250 quid, and you've only paid for the fuel and oil!

John from Aintree Paving was cutting some blocks this afternoon using a typical cut-off saw, and because that's a much heavier tool, when it came up against a tougher bit of block, it tended to throw the block out of its 'hold', rather than cut askew or throw itself out of line. With a firmly braced block, the cut-off saw would trim those blocks of yours, nae bother.

Or you could use a bench-mounted masonry saw which is what the brick cutting company will have. Same principle - keep the block firmly in place and use a big heavy 'cutter' that can't be knocked off course.

Have you found a buyer for all your hardcore, yet?

I'm surprised a lump that size got through the aggregate sieves, which makes me wonder if it's not a clump of summat that's fallen into the mix from somewhere in the production plant.

You should send a picture to David Marsh at Brett and see what he has to say about it!

Monoblock, or block paving as it's called south of Hadrian's Wall, is a flexible paving. The bedding and the jointing are unbound, that is, no cement, and so the blocks can be laid on a standard sub-base.

The problem with the Carpet Stones is the joint width - they're too wide to rely on an unbound jointing material, such as sand, so you're more or less obliged to use a mortar (or a polymeric sand), which, because of the small unit size of the individual "stones" means that a bound bedding is required, which, in turn, requires a bound base. However, you could get around this on a patio with foot traffic only be laying the Carpet Stones onto a 75-100mm  thick bed of concrete laid over a sub-base. That would be strong enough to take pedestrians in low numbers, but would not be suitable for a driveway, such as you have, where the only sensible option is to use at least 100mm of concrete as a bed/base, or, as it says in the brochure, lay a concrete base and rely on a 20-30mm layer of mortar to bed the damned things.

A 6:1 bedding layer will be reasonably hard, somewhere around 15-20 Newtons, I'd estimate, and a 3:1 jointing mix would be even harder/more brittle, at around 30-40 Newtons, so your plan to use a flexible jointing material is a non-starter with any cement-based material. What made you think that a cement-based material would be flexible?

I can't understand why you would want a flexible jointing material, anyway, when you're laying on a rigid bed. Remember what I said in my previous post - "Stiff on Stiff" - if you use a stiff bed, then you should have a stiff joint. If you really want a flexible joint, then you need to look at a bitumen-based sealant, or some other elastomeric compound, such as Nitoseal, but the cost would be astronomical. A rough calculation tells me it would cost more for the Nitoseal to fill the joints of a single mat of Carpet Stones than it would for the mat itself!

Why not contact Bradstone and ask what they suggest? I'll bet they have only one option, the one in the brochure!

I'm not sure about this Polymartic stuff. It can't be a flexible mortar, and my guess is that it's just another polymeric sand. You say it contains a "permanent plasticiser", but that doesn't make any sense, as a plasticiser keeps mortar plastic, ie, workable, unset. I'll have to see if I can find out anything about it - I mentioned it to the CEO of Canada's leading manufacturer of polymeric sands, but he has never heard of it! Can you tell me where you bought it?

To Nev - have a read of the Paving over an existing base page to see if your idea is feasible.

The reason everyone goes for the clasic Brindle and Charcoal herringbone block paving is because that's what they've seen and what they feel safe with. There is so much choice available with paving that I really do despair of the driveway buying public for being so bloody conservative. Having said that, the tumbled yorkstone setts are superb. If I had the right sort of property, they're what i would have for my driveway.

As for the Elite....I'm not impressed at all. I really don't like them, they look too artificial, too concretey, too much like Lego. I saw some laid to a driveway near me and I had to get Mrs Taz to pull over while I had a good gawp. Has your client seen them in real life or are they judging from the catalogue?

Burnt Ochre has always been my favourite Marshalls' Colour, but I always liked it with the Plum Brown rather than Marigold. I have some photies, somewhere, of a huge, 1,000+m² job we did to 4 bungalows using all Burnt Ochre about 8 or 9 years ago, when I was fit and able. I must dig them out and upload them at some point.

Funnily enough, Marshalls have just appointed a new rep for the North-west of England. I'll have a word and see if he can chase up the Elite samples you wanted.

Regatta is a nice block on the right sort of job. It looks olde worlde, but then its edges are too neat to be 100% convincing. Still, if it came to a choice between Elite and Regatta, I'd go with the Regatta.

Volcano - it's being released to the Marshalls Approved List members next month which I think is a total bloody nonsense, but then, if you'd paid 300 quid plus to be in the Marshalls gang, you'd want summat for your money!

It's easy to think that Marshalls dominate the business if you're stuck here in the North-west of England, but, in other parts of the country, there is much more competition, and a much wider choice of products.

If you're in Cumbria, what about the Armstrong stuff? Those Beamish cobbles are nice, and then there's Lakeland in Penrith - it's not all Marshalls, although I agree it can seem that way at times!

The only problem with using a monotone red, and it's the same reason for why Brindle is the most popular colour, is that it shows up the slightest mark. If your car, or a visitor's car drips a bit of oil onto an all-red drive, it will stand out like the proverbial sore thumb, whereas, with a brindle, it's almost impossible to spot minor drips.

Obviously, you can counter this by using a sealant or vetting all traffic using the paving, but it's an important consideration.

The charcoal circle will look good, but there are other tricks to make it look even better, such as using a Marigold soldier to frame the circle, or even using a circle in a different block, like the Drivesett or similar. Whatever you do, though, will be OK, as, with such a relatively large area, it definitely needs breaking up with some feature of other.

I'll have a look for that piccie in t'morning - I'm too knackered now to be hunched over boxes!

................

Well, it's not a 45 herringbone, but you get the impression of the overall colour.....

With the Keykerb, there are ready-formed tapered units that allow you to form radii as fast as 500mm. As for how fast a radius you can create using a 200x100 block, that information is given on the Block Detailing page

Dark colours do appear cleaner for longer than pale colours, but all concrete pavers fade over time, as they all rely on artificial colouring. Clay pavers and exposed aggregate pavers keep their colour, but cost a bit more.

I don't think it's fair to say such-and-such a block fades badly, as dyes and colour blends are being re-formulated all the time. Some blocks from the late 80s have more or less 'bleached' over the years, but the same colour of the same block (supposedly) from the same manufacturer may now last, say 15 years before losing its colouring.

A lot depends on the aggregate that's used. I know of some blocks that are manufactured with a high PFA content, which is a dark grey by-product of the power-generating industry often used as a cement substitue in civil engineering applications. We find that red dyes have a real battle to overcome the inherent dark grey of the PFA and those blocks darken and 'bleach' to a rather sad dirty red in just a couple or three years, while other blocks, such as the ones one my own driveway, have held their colour for 7 years now and you can still tell they are very definitely red (brindle, ack shirley, but you know what I mean!)

I saw an 'interesting' block-paved drive near my sister's place last night - alternating bands of brown and marigold. Next time I'm down there, I'll have a proper nosey and a word with the homeowner (assuming they're not completely bonkers!) as to why they chose that particular scheme.

My Marshalls 2003 Catalogue is badged with "Travis Bloody Perkins" and a large ring from a mug or tea, but all the pictures are the same....aaah, yes, the Bracken...that's the one that's sort of in-between Burnt Ochre and Brindle.

Marigold or Buff would form a good contrast, but, instead of going for a simple diamond or one of the Driveline Circles, why not switch tack completely and use on of the DriveSETT circles or octants? It'd cost a few bob more, but it would be impressive.

Using Charcoal for the soldiers/detailing is not going to be sufficiently distinctive for anyone on the Nr 37 bus to realise that it's NOT yet another Brindle and Charcoal Masterpiece, unless you have an 'interesting' shape to your layout.

Have you seen these Bracken blocks in real life? I seem to recall that the ones I've seen up here in the civilised part of the country are radically different from the ones they sell in the little towns and villages of Southern Britain, probably because they're made in different factories using different coarse aggregates.

The Drivesett is a coloured concrete block that's been tumbled. The Driveline is a coloured concrete block that hasn't been tumbled. I reckon the dyes will fade at more or less the same rate, but, I'd hope that in 15 years, you'd still have a driveway with more than a hint of its original colouring. I can't see any reason for Driveline to fade faster than Drivesett or vice versa.

12 quid a metre? Too dear for me, that is! I know that it can be bought from independent BMs for around a tenner per square metre, including the <spit> VAT

I'd suggest you get a few prices for the driveway, just so that you know what sort of money is involved, and then work out how much it's going to cost you to buy the materials and the hire in the plant to do the job yourself. Then work out how many hours you reckon it will take you, and see just how much you are really saving in return for so much of your free time.

DIY is fine for those who enjoy the challenge and like to be involved in building work, but if you want a job with minimum fuss and minimum stress, then a contractor may be the answer, as a decent firm will be able to construct a 140m² drive from scratch in about a week, whereas I would guess that it could take you a month, or even longer!

Several DIYers that have done their own driveways have confessed that it took far longer than anticipated, that they found it needed full days of work, rather than a couple of hours each evening, but that, overall, they really enjoyed the experience.

The great advantage block paving has over a monolithic surface, such as PIC or tarmac, is that, if you do get it wrong, it can be taken up and relaid without too much fuss. It's a very forgiving medium.