Basketweave - Is it strong enough

[Richey]

Hi everyone / anyone who can help, I am preparing to lay a driveway using the basketweave pattern but according to a Brett Landscaping catalogue this pattern is only suitable for foot traffic. I have found one other post on this site that states that inter-locking patterns are structually stronger but nothing here to say that basketweave cannot be used for cars. The driveway in question is long and narrow (3m x 13m) with a slight fall, about 1:100.

If I did go ahead with this pattern would I need to make one hell of a strong edge to this driveway to hold it all together?

Thanks in advance. Richey

[lutonlagerlout]

problem with any driveway with a non interlocking pattern is that people tend to drive their cars in the same trajectory every time they use their driveway,so with basket weave you have a lot of straight joints and over time it can rut
having said this a guy down the road from me had basket weave 5 years ago and its holding firm but his drive is 8 m by 6 m
personally i wouldn't use anything but herringbone on a drive minimum 60mm blocks unless clays
cheers LLL

[Richey]

Thanks for the reply LLL. Yeah like you there is a great looking basketweave drive just down the road from me as well. Its small but its one of the few that hasn't sunk, shifted or busted out of its edging. The drive way I'm laying leads up to a cottage and so I wanted a pattern to suit the building. Logic is telling me that as long as I have a sound edging course and sub-base then the blocks can't shift anwhere. Any thoughts on that? Cheers.

[lutonlagerlout]

one thing i would say from experience is that baskey weave is a pain in the neck pattern
if your edgings/kerbs are not in 100% square it looks god awful
with 45 deg herringbone the house could be 100 MM out of parallel to the road and it never shows
i would have thought clays or tegula style block paving looks a bit more cottagy than basket weave anyway
its up to you and your punter but i would say cavaet emptor to basket weave
cheers LLL

[Tony McC]

Basketweave, or any other variation of the stack bond layout, is NOT suitable for areas that will be subjected to vehicular run over, and especially not if there is *any* risk at all of vehicles performing point turns on the completed surface.

The lack of horizontal interlock results in excessive loads being carried through to the edge courses and often results in pavement failure.

[lutonlagerlout]

it was on the tip of my tongue
cheers tony
LLL

[Richey]

Well thats a pretty definate answer. I had just about made up my mind to go ahead, especially as i saw a driveway of similar proportions completed in basketweave a little while ago with a huge holiday home parked on it. But then again two edges of that driveway were against walls.
Thanks Tony