Sloping drive - diamond pattern blocks

[mattpaint]

I am planning a driveway and have a fussy client (my wife) regarding the choice of materials. All the usual suspects have been considered (Tarmac, gravel, paviors and blocks). My preference would be tumbled block paving as we have this at the rear of the house, but my wife is yet to be convinced. She has her eye on Diamond Pattern Blue Paviors. My questions are as follows:

The drive is on a fairly steep slope, from the road down to the garage (approx 1:3 – I need to measure to be sure though). Will blocks or Blue Paviors be too slippery on a cold wet winter’s morning?

Secondly will a mass of blue paviors look a bit odd? I have seen them in small patches and along footpaths but not on a large area.

Any other recommendations, comments on the above or pictures of blues being used in a large area would be welcomed.

[Tony McC]

1 - slipperiness: maybe, just depends on age/condition/brand

2 - aesthetics: depends on the property. look great with older character properties, but completely out of place on new-builds. When I get back to my main pc, I'll try to find some photies.

[Tony McC]

OK - here's a couple of photies: one of new stable pavers laid to a bridge deck and one of reclaimed, laid to a private driveway. There's more colour variation in the reclaimed, but they've been marred somewhat by careless use of mortar, resulting in the white/grey staining.

[Dave_L]

Not sure on that paving - perhaps I'd reserve judgement until it had weathered in a little.

[Tony McC]

I love them.....on the right job. They wouldn't look right outside a Barratt house, but any Victorian-Edwardian or pre-war house of character couldn't help but be improved by a stable pavior courtyard or pathway.

Sadly my own home id a 1960s semi, so stable paviors wouldn't look right on the driveway, but I have plans to use them as an edge course and as a mowing strip in my back garden, where they will work by being used as a detail, rather than as a main paving material.



Edited By Tony McC on 1217801263

[mattpaint]

Thanks all for your comments, advice and pictures. My other half works in Birmingham and recons several of the canal bridges are paved in the diamond pattern bricks – she now thinks it may look a bit “industrial� for our house??? – So back to the drawing board.

The revised plan is to use tumbled blocks, as we already have them at the back of the house. The existing drive has been taken down to clay and capped (approx 150mm) with a mixture of road stone, broken bricks and predominantly road planings. I notice from another post that Road Planings are not suitable – is this correct and why?

[Rich H]

From the main site:

Planings
When a bituminous or asphaltic road surface is renewed, the old surface is often removed by a beast of a machine known as a Cold Milling Machine, or, more familiarly, a Planer, which mills and reduces the existing surface to small chunks, usually 15mm or less in size. In some cases, these planings, as they are called, are recycled by reheating an mixing with a fresh binder to create a new bituminous or asphalt-bound surfacing material, but quite often they are used as a poor quality fill, often ending-up on farm tracks and the like.
Planing Machine in operation
They are not considered to be a suitable fill or sub-base material for most construction projects because asphalt/bitumen is a perishable product and as such, will degrade over time, which could lead to problems of settlement of worse should they be used in any load-bearing capacity.

[Tony McC]

Someone copied me in on an email from Interpave in which they (Interpave) claimed road planings were OK for residential use, a comment I find shocking. Planings are OK for farm tracks, but they are shite as a sub-base beneath flexible paving because there is no control over particle size, fines content and durability. When wet, they become mushy and they degrade over time.

I'd be less concerned were they to be used as a sub-base beneath, say, gravel, but for blocks or setts, they cause more trouble than they're worth.



Edited By Tony McC on 1218799608

[mattpaint]

Thanks both for your promt replies - it looks like I will need to scrape off the existing surface and start from scratch.

Out of interest if I lay tumbled blocks onto a slope (1:6) will the sand screed wash out, or should I lay the blocks on a lean mix (sand + cement)?