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Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2014 8:07 am
by Moto GT
Morning all,
Long time lurker, first time poster...
I am about to start digging out my old slab and gravel drive and lay a block paved drive.
I have drawn up a scale plan of what I intend to do, complete with a line of channel drainage and a run off into a soakaway tank, 1no geotextile wrapped PSM1A.
I have suddenly lost all my confidence in doing this myself and I am looking for advice.
I have read the block paving pages and it all wakes sense but I am worried about getting my levels right and the fall in the sub base and screed, and in fact the screeding. Laying blocks doesn't cause me a problem though, I work in a merchants and have had practise at that, just not the rest of it...
I laid a mortar lay patio a few years back and compacted the sub base etc, but mortar lay seemed easy as you had that aspect of movement in the bedding....
sorry if I sound hopeless, just want to get the opinion of all of you helpful folk as a reassurance I guess!
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2014 8:27 am
by Carberry
It is a daunting task but all the information is available here and if there is anything you're unsure of you can post photos and ask questions. There have been some great DIY jobs that would rival professional jobs thanks to the help on this site.
If you want a reference book at hand when you're doing it, buy the gaffers book, it has a all the information you need to lay a driveway from design to brushing in the kiln dried sand.
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2014 4:55 pm
by lutonlagerlout
where are you based motogp?
if you are local to me I would give you a few pointers
generally speaking the first thing for me on any job is falls
once you know your falls and where they are going you can calculate the dig
cheers LLL
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2014 10:30 pm
by KAMIKAZEE DIY
I'm a DIYER too and reckon CARBERRYS made a good suggestion to get Tonys book.
I got it last year and read it all on holiday and refer back to it (I'm doing my garden just now too) regularly.
If you're biggest concern is SETTING OUT, there is a chapter dedicated to it in book, I'm looking at book now and chapter covers - BASIC TOOL KIT,SETTING OUT THE SHAPE, THE EXAMPLE DRIVEWAY,ESTABLISHING A PERPENDICULAR, ESTABLISHING A 45 DEGREE LINE, FURTHER SETTING OUT, FINISHING OFF SETTING THE LEVELS THE PRINCIPLES PLANNING THE DRAINAGE ESTABLISHING LEVELS ON SITE.
I would say it covered more thoroughly in book than website.
Book is definite worth getting and I found it surprisingly readable with some humour, gets into the nitty gritty stuff unlike many other DIy books I have looked at.
Also maybe better getting a book black rather than I-pad etc.
Cheers
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:12 am
by Tony McC
Thanks, Kamikazee - the cheque's in the post :;):
The key to success with the excavation and sub-base is to take your time and keep checking your levels, which can be established using, say, marker pegs or stacked bricks or whatever is convenient. Each site is different, and so there is no single 'best method'. Personally, I think the use of Boning Rods is the simplest, and if you have pins and string lines set up at the edges, it's incredibly easy to keep checking as you progress.
Problems usually arise because DIYers have underestimated the amount of work involved and they start to panic. They often seem to think they should be able to work as quickly and as efficiently as a contractor, when the truth is it will often take them 2 or 3 times as long. But so what? It's more important to get it done right than get it done quickly and for most DIYers it's the satisfaction of completing the task themselves which brings its own reward.
Plan ahead. Think out just how you will get the excavation done, how you will establish levels, how you will level out the sub-base. If you hire-in a mini-digger, then accept that you may well run over time, and the same applies if you hire a plate compactor, a saw or a splitter. Take your time: in the long run, it's far better to spend an extra day getting the levels right than be faced with humps or hollows in the finished pavement.
And if you keep posting here, with the aid of some photies, we can all chip in and help you get it done via the magic of the interweb!