Machine lay block paving - Finally got there!

[Tony McC]

The long-promised page looking at Machine Lay Block Paving is now complete and online for your entertainment.

I started this page in early 2007 but it has been one bloody problem after another to get it completed. You would not believe the amount of hassle I've had to endure just to get original, unpublished photies to illustrate the text. You'd think I was revealing state secrets about unclear weapons given the amount of admin, begging, pleading and paperwork necessary to get photies of a cluster being placed!

I had actually given up hope of getting video footage of installation on a Britsh or Irish site because the number of barriers put in my way over the years have been ridiculous: "You don't have a CSCS card so you can't come on site", "It's commercially sensitive", "You've got to undertake a 1 week induction at your own cost", "The site owner doesn't want any publicity".

It's concrete paving, FFS!!!

Anyway, last Friday, I finally got the nod from page sponsors Brett Paving to publish the page as it stands with a vague promise that at some point this summer, there will *definitely* be a chance to obtain that elusive footage of a British/Irish installation.

I won't hold me breath, but I do desperately want to get some good film of Machine Lay in progress.

I can actually begin to understand just why ML is so rare in these soggy islands given the seeming reluctance of some installers and many site owners to allow their project to be featured in a webpage intended to promote the technique. Two of the biggest manufacturers involved in ML have been very helpful and I can't really fault them, but if this installation technique is to expand, as it MUST do for all sorts of reasons, then we need greater publicity for it.

Long-range views of ports or freight yards or even bloody housing estates is hardly likely to threaten the commercial viability of developers. Allowing fellow contractors, even if they are rivals, to see what kit is used to carry out the work is not really going to expose any deep, dark, dangerous secrets. It could, quite possibly, enhance the uptake of ML and grow a bigger market for CBPs in which we can all share.

Anyway, I hope you feel it was all worth the wait!

[Edgar]

Very interesting article Tony. I'm all for getting machines to do the routine work and I'm pleased to see my preferred "transverse broken bond pattern" can be accomodated. But I do do wonder if, from what you've explained recently, laying this pattern in large areas will be successful. It would be sad if failures of this pattern led to machine lay getting a poor reputation.

Edgar

[lutonlagerlout]

The tolerance, accuracy and competence of the prepared sub-base is often a source of much jovial banter between groundworker and paving contractor. In fact, sometimes it becomes so jovial that restraint is required!

story of my life
TBH all of the graft is in the subbase and bedding
LLL

[lemoncurd1702]

The machines they use in Holland are pretty cool. Great for laying sub-urban roads anyway, not sure how they cope with larger expanses i.e. connecting the pattern.


paving machine

[Tony McC]

The more-or-less default laying pattern for ML paving is a herringbone, but as Edgar noted, TBB is possible and when it has been used, it's worked fairly well. One gang I regard as one of, if not *the* best in the country just now have their banksman tighten up each course in the cluster using the paving hammer and so minimise any loosening of the joints, which is the usual cause of failure.

However, if I were designing a ML job using TBB, I'd design-in intermediate restraining courses at regular intervals, say 6-10m just to limit the potential for spread.

There are moves afoot to compel larger projects to be machine laid, and I have a lot of sympathy with the idea, if not with the uneven implementation. We need more contractors to invest in the machinery, and that, in turn, needs specifiers to provide more of the larger schemes where ML can be successfully used. At the moment far too many car parks, shopping malls, hoiusing developments, etc., are being laid to blacktop with point drainage. Many of these projects should be permeable CBP which can be machine laid, with some financial incentive to ensure it is economically viable, if necessary.

As has happened in the more enlightened European countries, and increasingly in North America, once you have ML on these commercial jobs, there's an inevitable trickle-down to larger driveways and patios and within a few years, it become sto norm for anything much above 50m² to be ML.

When I started the driveway block paving business in 1984, most of the smaller jobs were a hand dig. Within 10 years, nearly everything was machine dig as mini-diggers had become an essential part of the kit. The same should be happening with ML kit.

[Dave_L]

Great write-up Tony, learnt a lot!

I think I'll stick to my reduced-fines blacktop

[Tony McC]

....which is somthing I want to write more about, but can I get any of the manufacturers to help?? CIF!