The Brew Cabin

What a site!! Can't imagine how many people you are helping, I hope you have another life as well. I have a large front garden in which I want to put a quite large drive area. I've had the usual procession of men in vans knocking at my door offering to do it for £5k, but I've seen some of the work they do. Chatting to a local guy, he said that the way to do a proper gravel drive was to excavate to the required depth, fill in and compact with type 1, then seal it with a bitumen coating, and while that is wet, put the first layer of stones on top. When dry, continue with the stones on top. The seal is to prevent the cars from sinking into the gravel drive which you see a lot of. Question: how difficult is the bitumen coating to lay, can the equipment be hired (understand if you don't know that), can any of the resin based products you have talked about do the same or better job. Oh, and I guess, can you confirm that this is the best way to stop sinking into a gravel driveway.

Many Thanks

Nick

The notion of using bitumen as a binder for this type of job passed out many years ago and I can't think of anyone still using this method. It was never overly successful and I suspect it was promoted by the bitumen industry to boost sales, rather than being used because it was a damned good way of doing things.

The main problem was that the relatively thin layer of bitumen-bound material was easily ruptured, especially where there are significant shearing (turning) forces at work, and then the whole construction starts to fall apart

The products you'd need to do it like that are still available from companies such as Colas, but I'm not sure of price. Colas would be able to advise.

Resin systems, whether they are resin bound or resin bonded, rely on there being a firm and stable substrate when vehicular traffic is anticipited. None of the decent manufacturers/suppliers would suggest using a resin system directly over a sub-base unless the job was on a very tight budget and expecting only foot traffic.

The best way to prevent yourself and your vehicles sinking into a gravel driveway, is, as it says on the main website, to keep the gravel as a surface dressing layer not more than 35mm thick. Alternatives include using cellular matrices to contain the gravel, and these are, rightly, becoming more and more popular, but the old bitumen-bound trick is a thing of the past, I'm afraid.