The Brew Cabin

We are complete novices at block paving, but we are finding the site extremely helpful and managing nicely. We are block paving the front of the house for car standing. We have decided on a standard 100mm x 50mm block, but is there any difference in the quality of one brand over another. The 3 we have on offer locally are Plaspave, Marshalls and Charcon. Any experience or advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks,

Dave

Marshalls are preffered by most of the contractors i know, whether they are actually better or not is a different question. You will have a wider range of colours available if you opt for marshalls but you will pay slightly more for them, if its not a very large area i would use them because in my experience they do seem slightly stronger than the plaspaves but i cannot comment on the charcon block as i have never laid any.

We in the north-west of Eng-er-land are poorly served by block paving manufacturers. Marshalls dominate our area, and although we do get Plasmor blocks, and the odd Charcon offering, we don't get Brett, RMC are rare, Formpave are rarer still, and so it's easy to think that marshalls are the only option when there are actually plenty of alternatives.

The Plaspave blocks from Widnes tend to lose their colour too quickly for my liking, while the Knottingley blocks seem to be much better. Charcon are just as good as Marshalls, but there is so much variability between blocks from the various Marshalls plants that I can't give a blanket approval of all their offerings. The blocks we get from Ramsbottom are superb, but the stuff from Sandy is less to my taste.

In your shoes, I'd choose based on my colour preference. If there's one particular colour that really appeals, go with that.

Anyone have any thoughts on the Tarmac TopPave Brand. They seem almost too cheap to be true compared to Marshalls.

I have found TopPave blocks very good at keeping their colour and are harder than some other manufacturers blocks. Trouble is their dimensions often differ greatly from block to block compared to others.

James C