Laying tegula drivesett - Help!!!

[lutonlagerlout]

WB
baby duck
once you have extended your subbase it would be best to rip the older lot up and if budgie is tight mix them with the new ones
rescreed all the sand together for a more seamless look
LLL

[babyduck]

WB
baby duck
once you have extended your subbase it would be best to rip the older lot up and if budgie is tight mix them with the new ones
rescreed all the sand together for a more seamless look
LLL

Rip the whole load up? Aghhhh yes I guess that's what you are saying! I'm not sure I could face that (and in the time it would take me I'd probably have a few dozen parking tickets!!

Do you know if there is much difference between how the Harvest Buff looked when new and what the Harvest ones look like now? I'm sure in 3 years mine have faded somewhat so I'm not sure if there really is a big difference in original colour. If they are not actually that different then I assume over time they would fade to virtually the same colour?

[babyduck]

Rip the whole load up? Aghhhh yes I guess that's what you are saying! I'm not sure I could face that (and in the time it would take me I'd probably have a few dozen parking tickets!!

Do you know if there is much difference between how the Harvest Buff looked when new and what the Harvest ones look like now? I'm sure in 3 years mine have faded somewhat so I'm not sure if there really is a big difference in original colour. If they are not actually that different then I assume over time they would fade to virtually the same colour?

[lutonlagerlout]

I am only talking about taking the blocks up and mixing them with the new
it really does look pants when you lay new/old side by side
LLL

[babyduck]

But as the drive is very steep I started at the bottom and worked my way up. So unless I'm missing something I would have to take up the whole lot then start again at the bottom, mixing old with new?

[mickg]

the difference is like black is to white babyduck, the old blocks got tumbled and the new way is to use small hammers to distress the edges

try phoning your local Travis Perkins as they are a Marshall's main stockist to see if any of the branches in your area have any stock of the old tumbled blocks or alternatively drivesett duo would be the nearest looking bock with the tumbled finish but not the colour, one side is all buff and the other is cotswold

drivesett duo

Luton is right though it will not look good if you just add the new blocks butting up to the existing but thats up to you on what quality of finish you would like to see, we do this for a living and can't do that standard of work

[babyduck]

Blimey thanks for that. The woman at Marshalls said they were identical in finish, ie tumbled!! That completely rules out the Drivesett Tegula.

So to confirm the Duo looks the same with a tumbled finish and could be laid with my original blocks, the 'only' problem then being the colour?

You say one side off the Duo is Cotswold and the other Buff, but aren't there other colours that I could combine to hopefully get a better than black to white match?

[babyduck]

I will try a few calls to TP first though. Any idea when they stopped producing them and why....I was told at the time they were very popular??!!

[mickg]

Drivesett 50 as it was called when it was first launched was my best selling paving blocks for 15 years, customers loved them and the product sold its self, sadly for me not anymore

Around September 2008 the production was changed over to the new style and existing stocks used up, Ramsbottom in the northwest was the first plant to install the new all singing and dancing automated line and made the tumbler redundant, I have alway felt it was a big mistake as they have spoiled what was the best paving block on the market

I have been told various reasons
the white sludge due to the tumbling process had to be disposed of off site which cost money
carbon footprint
the blocks left the factory with a whitish film due to the tumbling process and actually looked better the older the blocks became as this film got weathered

[mickg]

your about 9m2 short to complete the extended part of the driveway if you already have 6m2, i don't know the size of the existing driveway but you could take up and add 2 rows of a contrasting colour to form a border all the way round

say for example add a row of drivesett duo in the buff and a row of charcoal

having the charcoal forming a break between the main area and the new border will look OK as the different colour of the blocks are not touching each other

drivesett blocks are 160mm wide so 2 rows is 320mm, measure the 4 sides to the drive and x it by 320 will give you a rough m2

this way you might just have enough blocks to complete the extended part of the driveway but still keep the same colour within the main area of the drive

just a thought

[babyduck]

Thanks for that mickg, I sort of get what you are saying.....I think!

At the moment the drive is about 10m long by about 4m wide, and has a pennant (?) grey fixed border round the bottom and sides, in 240x160 laid end to end along the sides and side by side along the bottom (if that makes any sense! Basically looking up the drive from the bottom all the grey 240x160 are standng on their ends.

From what you say I would still need to take up the whole drive, but then add a further two border courses to hopefully gain enough old block to finish the extension?

By my calcs if I added 2 rows then that would gain (10+10+4)*0.32 = 7.68sqm, which would be more than enough, but wouldn't 3 courses border course look a bit strange? Basically 3x 0.16m of borders running up each side of a 4m drive.

If I was to do this my thinking would be to add a row of buff and then another row of grey and then the main body. What do you think.

Thanks for all your replies so far

[babyduck]

By my calcs if I added 2 rows then that would gain (10+10+4)*0.32 = 7.68sqm, which would be more than enough, but wouldn't 3 courses border course look a bit strange? Basically 3x 0.16m of borders running up each side of a 4m drive.

I

When I say 7.68sqm is more than enough that's based on adding three rows to the new area.

Just thought, are the pennant grey tumbled blocks still available or have they too been discontinued?

[47p2]

Pennant grey are still available

[lutonlagerlout]

one thing to be aware off with drivesett duo is that if you lay them with both colours upwards i.e. a mix the nibs can clash and its a pain knocking them off
LLL

[mickg]

right i did not know you had a coloured border on the existing driveway, 3 rows would not look right, 2 is more than enough

don't take up all the driveway just round the perimeter of all the driveway, the existing and the new and maybe a border down the join from the old to the new just to gain a few more m2 for the extended bit

you have to lay drivesett duo a third bond instead of half bond otherwise the nibs will clash

if you could post a photo it would give more info

you was fortunate 47p2 to get the tumbled tegula blocks, I cant' purchase that style anymore as they only supply the hammered finish in my area