The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:14 am**

Hi Tony,

I plan to use tumbled stone setts (Farrar - Woodhead) for our driveway to match the same stone paving as the pathway to front door. I would be grateful for your opinion regarding the following:

1/ The contractor has suggested that by laying the setts on a sub-base with sand bedding, it may cause a problem with marking (or even chipping) the setts by wacking them down into positon over a loose covering of dry kiln sand. Does this sound likely? As an alternative he has suggested laying them into a dry mixture of sand / cement which will need less wacking.

2/ Where the setts are to be edged up to a planting border, what is the chance over the years of the sub-base at the edge & underneath the cemented edging setts breaking up into the plant border to leave gaps? Is is worth puting in place a hidden edging restraint.

Thanks very much . . . Andrew

Posted: **Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:57 am**

1 - as these are already tumbled stone setts, any minortr damage caused by the plate compactor will be impossible to identify. If the contractor is really worried (and I can't see why they should be) then they can fit a neoprene sole to the plate to remove the chance of any accidental scratching or spalling.

I's rather see these setts laid on a sand bed, as would be used for block paving. They are intended to be used as a flexible paving, so laying them on a sand-cement bed would be counterproductive. There's not a lot of sense in having a driveway laid with the blocks bedded on a rigid material yet jointed with a 'flexible' material. This is less important on a patio or pathway, where the loads are much lower, but stick with all-flexible construction for the driveway.

2 - the sub-base should "spread" beyond the outer edge of the paving by 150mm or more, and because it is contained by the soil of the planter beds, there's almost no risk of any problems developing. It's the same construction as would be used for flexible concrete block paving: the edges are rigid, bedded on and haunched with concrete, and, as longs as they're laid properly, they're going nowhere for the foreseeable future!

The Brew Cabin

Wacking stone setts