The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:50 am**

Hi All
Whats a contractors preferance of machine laying block paving or hand laying block paving (2500m2 car park application)?
Do many contractors have the machines?
Whats the difference in the labour cost between both?
Where can you get the machines and how much do they cost?
For an experienced contractor (and depending on how many in a crew) how much per day of HL would you get down and how much ML per day would you put down?

I heard of a block paving manufacturer T.......e (I dont know if i can mention their name here??) that hire out machines to contractors who dont have them?!?! do many suppliers offer this service?

Any comments from contractors would be really helpful.

Seperate from above, is there much of a laying rate difference between Permeable paving and standard block paving...from putting the laying course, blocks and joint filling in?

Posted: **Sun Feb 07, 2010 11:51 am**

For 2,500mÂ², I would have to be convinced that hand lay was a sensible option. In Holland, any project greater than 1,500mÂ² has to be machine laid unless a sound case for hand lay can be made (narrow working area, special blocks, etc.)

There are only a few dedicated ML contractors in Britain and Ireland and it's exceptionally competitive between them. They tend to have their own kit to keep costs to a minimum.

The labour rate for ML is *very low* compared to Hand-lay, but then the scale of the job combined with the sheer scale of productivity tends to offset that so that the operatives and the contractor all make a decent butty out of it.

Machines can be bought from Probst or Optimas and start at around 10 grand upwards. Then there's the cost of the lifting head or clamp which can add anything from 1,000 to 10,000 quid, depending on the blocks and pattern being laid.

Laying rates for hand lay, based on a 3-man team working on a 1,000mÂ² or bigger job, with no complications would be around 120mÂ²/day on a good shift. A 3-man ML team would be expected to lay at least 700mÂ² per day

Tobermore, which is the manufacturer you didn't know whether to mention, do indeed provide a free machine and lifting head. Other manufacturers may provide dedicated clamps to lift their particular format of block.

It's an area that is going to grow as the laying of large areas of paving is currently under examination by a HSE working group (we've been at it over a year and achieved buggerall so far due to repeated changes of personnel at HSE) and also because it makes economic sense. I've seen dozens of 100-500mÂ² jobs in Germany and the BeNeLux countries that are machine-laid because it's better for the operatives and more professional.

However, it's not a skill you learn in an hour. It takes a couple of days at least and you need a team who know what they're doing. For the largest jobs, such as the current port contracts at Gt Yarmouth and Felixstowe, the competition between the few contractors capable of doing this type of work is savage, there's no other word for it. You can get better money per mÂ² on the medium sized jobs, such as local car parks and estate roads.

Moving on to permeable paving (CBPP), once the prep is done, the laying rate for the actual block is (or should be) no different to standard pavers.

The Brew Cabin

Machine lay vs hand lay