The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:41 pm**

Hi, firstly a big thanks to everyone involved in putting this site together, what a useful source of information and one I'd wish i'd found out before I had my drive laid.

Anyway, long story short.........Hired a driveway specialist to remove concrete drive / crazy paving and lay 85sqm of Marshall driveline vintage in charcoal, laid on 30-40mm sharp sand and apx 100mm of type1.

A few hiccups along the way, mainly the February weather being so bad, but anyway it was completed 3 weeks ago.

On to the question - there are 2 clear patches in the blocks that were / are much darker than the others, they still look wet. Before i paid the last instalment I asked about this and he said they must have simply got wetter than the others before being laid, and they will just dry out. Obviously this delayed kiln sanding, but I have done the rest of the drive in the meantime.

Its been pretty dry for the last 3 weeks but these patches are still darker and still dont appear to have fully dried out yet. When they do look like they are starting to dry, a cold night and a frost and they instantly revert back to being very dark grey again, standing out from their immediate neighbouring blocks

One patch is c.10 sqm and the other is c. 20sqm. They just make the finished drive look patchy and not kind of what I was expecting.

Has anyone experienced this before (is it possible he's not mixed up the blocks, or even had a batch or three from different factories) if, that is the case, do you think they will normalise in the future?

Thanks in advance for any help.

B

Posted: **Wed Mar 23, 2011 6:38 pm**

i wouldn`t be worried mate, its still damp and cold etc. once summer comes, the blocks will dry out and the should look all the same. a picture would help though.

Posted: **Wed Mar 23, 2011 7:19 pm**

It will be a batch of blocks that are more porus than the others, there can be quite a difference depending on which site they are made at. I once had a whole 90m driveway of Marshalls Excell that would not dry out even though it was summer (the house got no sun at all). We had to hire 4 gas burners to dry them out to get the kiln dry sand in. See how they go in summer, may be ok, if not they may need mixing with the drier stuff to stop it looking patchy.

Posted: **Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:36 pm**

Thanks for the advice already guys - those burners seem like an extreme option, but not as extreme as lifting a newly laid drive to mix up the blocks!

lets see if this photo works then:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5171/5553464771_946b9d739f.jpg

Posted: **Wed Mar 23, 2011 10:08 pm**

doesnt look like theyve mixed the packs as they laid it looks very patchy i would not be happy with that and some of the cuts look a bit suspect to

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2011 6:18 am**

almost certainly they didnt mix the packs and the 2 patches were the 2 packs from the bottom that were very wet
when we lay floor screed you have to allow a week for every 10MM thickness to dry out
so if its a 50mm block you would be looking at 5 dry weeks for it to look the same
if that makes sense?
LLL

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:31 pm**

Thanks for the comments and feedback. I'm not particularly happy at all that they haven't mixed the blocks, but if as the majority of views suggest this'll be ok in a month or two then of course that'll be fine with me. I had some screeding done recently LLL so I had heard of the 1mm a day rule to dry. Can't wait to see if it all comes good.

Re the point on the cuts please, where specifically are you looking as to my untrained eye I think they look ok?

Cheers again.

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2011 5:41 pm**

i think the comment on the cuts is they have cut some very small bits, and some of the gaps are not great...

but i am no pro im just a "Diy" er

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2011 9:23 pm**

......on the bottom radius cuts are 'darts'.

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2011 9:43 pm**

Sorry, what are 'darts', are you talking about the tegulas? Do you mean the wedges that have been cut in? If so, what wouldbe the alternative? Thanks
B

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2011 10:14 pm**

blockpaving73 wrote:Sorry, what are 'darts', are you talking about the tegulas? Do you mean the wedges that have been cut in? If so, what wouldbe the alternative? Thanks
B

half way down the link page explains darts to you and inboard cutting darts and cutting

The Brew Cabin

Wet block patches not drying out