The Brew Cabin

Hi Tony,

I live in a block of flats and we have a large block paved car park for residents. It was laid six years ago and then was extended three years ago to double in size as the development extended. This means that the traffic speed and volume has increased as vehicles cross the entrance way.
And we now have council bin lorries accessing it and turning as well and they get up quite a momentum as they exit the car park.

The oldest area of the blocks have now started to become quite slack. And a neighbour has complained to the factors that the ripple noise from his porsche as he enters the car park is distracting him :-)

So we have had a quote through the site factors that are looking for a huge sum of cash to lift and relay 150sqm.
(mind you if this is the local price for blocking maybe i'll put in a quote and buy a van and a mini-digger outright )


Is this necessary.

Could these be tightened up without relaying the whole lot perhaps by whacking in some sand into the joints.
or is there a point where lift and relay is the best

I was wandering round the carpark today with a length of 2x2 to see if there are any hi/lo spots or ruts that might need to be 'sorted' and its pretty good level wise, just the blocks are rocking.


your or the forums thoughts please.

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If these blocks are becoming loose - ie: the joints are getting wider and allowing the blocks to 'rock', then that suggests that one or more of the restraining edges has slipped or given way. Is this possible? Are there any such free edges?

Topping-up the joints with joint-filling sand might help tighten-up the blocks over the short term, but after a few months, they will work loose again and you;re back at square one.

Without seeing the pavement, I can't say with absolute certainity, but in similar cases which I have seen, a 'lift and relay' is the only sensible option. However, this shouldn't be frighteningly expensive, even for 150m². I reckon something around the 3 grand mark would be the going rate in most parts of the country.

It may be that, if the cause of the looseness is identified, and it more than likely is a failed edge course, then you might not need to lift all of the paving after all, just relay the edge course and whatever paving seems to have worked itself loose.

Hi Tony,

First an apology for not getting back to the forum on this one, suddenly I have a real job.
I actually sorted this the following day, when I bumped into the original contractor who had laid the blocks.

[Long story of coincidences and employment with this contractor ensued]

We were both aghast at the price that had been quoted for the fix, he owns a couple of the flats in the development which he derives rental income from.

We checked the edges and none were loose and we lifted a few of the problem blocks. The joints were totally empty, and the bedding course was a soil/sand mix that is probably more soft sand than sharp!.
The theory is that these have been lifted by someone else and not reinstated properly.

So we got a couple(!!) of bags of jointing sand from his yard and did a quick fix on the joints.
We will go back later this summer with a squad and relay the problem area.

To give you an idea on the original quote. We can do this job commercially without ruining our margin for 1/4th of the quote we received. Tony your price is on target with our rate card.
There are as always some chancers around.


We will actually probably do the job personally and keep the squads on those 'real jobs'. As we have a vested interest in the project.

So for the moment its has cost us a few bags of sand and a couple of hours of fun in the winter sunshine.


And after a month the blocks could do with a topup so thats my saturday morning task.


Just to keep you informed.

Your comment about the soil/sand mix for the bedding is worrying. It really does suggest one of two things - either they weren't laid properly at the outset, which seems to have been ruled out, or, as you suggest, they've been ballsed up by someone else in the meantime.

In my experience, the gas and lecky boards are buggers for this type of thing, even though, under the HUAC rules, they are supposed to reinstate to specific standards. Some gangs seem to think that the standard for reinstatement work on public highways is different to that for private land, and also that any work done on a Friday afternoon doesn't need meet any minimum standards at all! :(