Cumbrian red.

[scooby73466]

I am thinking of covering my drive with 20mm Cumbrian red stone from Harden quarry in Northumberland. About 250 sq. mts. Half of it was block paving and I have taken those up, together with the sharp sand, and laid planings to bring the level back and then rolled and wacked it. The rest of the drive is planings anyway and there has been a lot of traffic over them during the new build.

Now for the questions. I prefer 20mm stone to 14mm. Is there any reason why I shouldn't lay this ? I was thinking that I would lay the stone 100mm thick. Is this too deep/not deep enough.

My planning permission for the replacement dwelling allows me to tarmac the drive. And information on a Government portal tells me that I can put stone/gravel on a drive without PP(because it's permeable)

And finally, how many tonnes for 250 sq. mts ?

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

[r896neo]

100mm is far too thick. For 20mm stone i would say 50mm is about right.

You'd need in the region of 20-25 tons for 50mm depth

[seanandruby]

My reason why...at £6.45 for a 25kg bag, or an average of £80ish for bulk bags depending on availability, would be in the region of £ 4.000 :;):

[lutonlagerlout]

agreed 40-50 mm depth

I personally think the 14mm would look better and sit better

but its your choice

20 tonnes should easy do it

LLL

[scooby73466]

100mm is far too thick. For 20mm stone i would say 50mm is about right.

You'd need in the region of 20-25 tons for 50mm depth

Thank you. Very helpful.

[scooby73466]

My reason why...at £6.45 for a 25kg bag, or an average of £80ish for bulk bags depending on availability, would be in the region of £ 4.000 :;):

I am 255 miles from the quarry and have a price from Lafarge for 2 x 8 leggers for half that amount (can't handle artics). We have people near me with 14mm but we fancied the larger stone.

[scooby73466]

agreed 40-50 mm depth

I personally think the 14mm would look better and sit better

but its your choice

20 tonnes should easy do it

LLL

Mmmm. We have seen the 14mm laid but have samples of the 20mm and thought it might look better and might even sit better but I respect your opinion LLL. The size isn't cast in stone (oh dear, sorry for that awful pun) and as I have said, there is 14mm stocked by two haulage companies near us which ought to be cheaper.

Plus the fact that if I buy the 14mm locally I could order 20 tonnes and if I wanted a bit more then I could order it. To be perfectly honest, we (the Head Gardener ) and I just don't know which size to choose.

We have seen two drives done locally with 14mm and it looked O.K.

Anybody else got any opinions please ?

EDIT. One of the reasons why I thought 20mm would be better is that we have 2 4x4 vehicles with knobbly tyres and thougt that they wouldn't pick 20mm up a seasily as 14mm.

EDIT 2 Plus the fact that if 20mm isn't quite right we can always put some 14mm on top.

[danstan]

We always recommend 20mm for a drive, the reason being is that the sizes are always approx - you will get some 14mm down (10-12mm etc) for example, thus starts becoming a nuisance getting in tyre treads, shoes, walking into the house etc etc.

there are 2 quarries that supply red, one is the Cumbrian, the other is a Scottish quarry. We stock the 20mm Scottish.

1 tonne = 10m2 @ 50mm

Nice durable material..

regards

[lutonlagerlout]

in my experience the 20mm stone tends to rut more
I know that sounds counter-intuitive but only from what i have seen
gravel always seems to go a long way so i reckon 20 tonnes would do it
have you got any pictures scoobs

we did a drive some years back with a 14mm granite chipping and the guy is well pleased it has really knit together well

cheers LLL

[scooby73466]

We always recommend 20mm for a drive, the reason being is that the sizes are always approx - you will get some 14mm down (10-12mm etc) for example, thus starts becoming a nuisance getting in tyre treads, shoes, walking into the house etc etc.

there are 2 quarries that supply red, one is the Cumbrian, the other is a Scottish quarry. We stock the 20mm Scottish.

1 tonne = 10m2 @ 50mm

Nice durable material..

regards

That's very interesting DanStan. Is what you have called Lanark Red ? That has been mentioned to me during my investigations. If you stock it then depending where you are we might deal with you instead. We are in the Midlands. The reason why we would consider your stone is that while the local stockists stone is a lovely red it is 14mm and when we have been sent a 20mm sample from Harden quarry it isn't so red. I know it will have quarry dust on it but even after wetting it it just isn't the same as the 14mm that we have seen locally.

Send me a PM if you want to take this further.

[scooby73466]

have you got any pictures scoobs

LLL

O.K. LLL, a couple of piccies. The aerial one was taken in August and the one from the highway was taken today. The paving slabs up to the front door will obviously disappear and when we have the new gates up then the paviours up to the highway will go as well.

[lutonlagerlout]

nice drum
to my mind tarmac and resin bonded gravel would look best but I guess the budget has gone wonky
if you use any gravel you will need to install some kind of apron to stop the stones getting on to the road
the choice is yours at the end of the day and i suppose you could always top up with smaller stones if you went for the 20mm to start with

*BUT*
I dont feel that gravel will do that house justice

IMHO

LLL

[scooby73466]

Thanks LLL, very kind of you to say so. We were originally going to tarmac it but reckon that at 250sq mts (-ish) it would have cost about £14k to do it. We also thought that maybe tarmac would be a bit stark and make the place look a bit "urban" (it's a farm)

I don't know what tarmac and resin bonded gravel is. Isn't this doing the job twice ? at least incurring two highly expensive processes ?

I am going to use the Charcon small block kerbs in brindle, the the same as I have used round the outside, only a double row opposing each other for the apron to stop the stone going beyond the line of the new gates. From there I will tarmac to the highway.

[scooby73466]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who contributed to this topic. Unfortunately it looks as if it's all gone !i!$ up at the moment ! Probably going to have to settle for 14mm.

[lutonlagerlout]

why not just get a couple of tonnes of 14 and give it the test?
cheers LLL