The Brew Cabin

I'm looking to lay a gravel driveway. I'm even less practical than I am wealthy, so I need to keep things simple if at all possible. I've read up on sub-bases for gravel - but I'm not sure what one looks like. The existing driveway looks like it was once gravelled. Now, it's highly compacted with small white stones, with a little moss/weed growing here or there and the odd dip which fills with water during heavy rain. A mess, really. But I don't want to go to the trouble/expense of laying a sub-base and hiring a roller if what's already there would work as a suitable sub-base. Might I get away with just weed-killing, edging, and spreading 35mm of gravel? I was hoping to post a photo of the surface, here, but I don't think I can. If anybody would be interested in taking a look, I could email them a pic. Many thanks for any help. Ben

Photos are not much to go off as you cannot tell how deep or compacted the sub base is but email me at prestigelandscapes at yahoo .co.uk and i will give you an educated guess regards Alan D.

It sounds as though your previously gravelled driveway has outlived its sell-by date. The loose gravel has all but gone and the sufacing has become totally embedded into what was a sub-base.

The good news is that you can probably re-use what you have, to a large extent. You'll need to re-grade the surface, to get rid of the low spots and any surface weeds, but that's not too difficult.

Basically, all you need to do is scratch off any detritus, organic matter, weeds, etc, and get rid of it. Next, loosen the top 30-50mm of the underlying sub-base and re-level it with a rake or a lute, eliminating any low spots in the process, then re-compact it all using a vibratory roller or a plate compacter. Finally, add your top dressing of 30-40mm of gravel, run the roller/plate over that a couple of times, and there you are!

Edgings and drainage may need some consideration, but these vary with every job, so I can't say exactly what will be required, but, if you want to post photies, send 'em to me and I'll upload them on your behalf.

Alan, Tony - many thanks for your replies. Alan - Hope you received the pics. Tony - I sent pics to "info at pavingexpert". Cheers to both of you.

Here are the piccies....





...now that I've seen what you have, it does look as though you could scratch off all that crap, reduce the level by 30mm or so, re-grade and level the sub-base underneath, and then simply dress with new gravel.