The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:41 pm**

As mentioned in an earlier post by 'Luton Lager Lout' here's the pics of my recent pattern imprinted concrete job.

The story so far...

A while ago I was considering block paving my drive and creating a patio in the back garden. After looking at many bad jobs and seeing weeds growing through half decent ones I notice a drive near my house that had been done in pattern imprinted concrete. (PIC). It looked good, very good, so I checked out the web site of company who did it www.superiordriveways.co.uk and was impressed. I'd never heard of PIC so I researched on google and phoned my mate 'LLL' to find out about it. 'Don't do it you twat' was the summary of his reply. Just about every search for information comes up with PIC horror stories. Cracking concrete, poor finish, slippery when wet, colouring problems... But, it seemed to me that if it is used extensively in north America and other countries then it must be the process not the concept that's wrong and if it's done properly then it offers a (virtually) maintenance free good looking alternative to block paving. Thanks to Tony McCormack (of this web site) who gave the company the thumbs up I contracted them to start in June. Due to the weather its only just been finished, they were only on the job for three days in total during the period, that says more about the weather in Manchester than about the company.

The area to be concreted is a driveway on the left of the house, a pathway leading to the front door and a patio at the back, about 110 square meters in total. The original 'finish' was 1910 concrete covered in parts in 1950's tarmac.

Here's some pics before the job (I'm sure it looked good when new):

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:51 pm**

60 tonnes of rubble cleared in 4 hours!:

Hardcore down:

Concrete poured, printed and the release agent applied:

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:53 pm**

Finished job. The sealant has been down a week:

Neat job on the man hole cover:

The driveway was printed with a random cobblestone pattern in Tudor brown and a charcoal release. The patio was printed with Ashlar slate in Bideford buff and a mahogany release with a stained 5ft cobble circle. Several expansion cracks were cut in the patio and drive, once the sealant was down they were barely noticeable.

There's still time for it to go wrong, and I'll post again here if it starts to look shabby. But so far it's the best 9 grand I've ever spent!

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 6:53 pm**

I want my bandwidth back!!
looks like the good folk of the people's republic of Lancashire ,have a half decent PIC crowd there
cheers LLL
PS I said a couple of photies nick

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 6:55 pm**

Very nice!

Saw some PIC on an estate today - looked shabby as hell! Totally the wrong colour too.

Posted: **Mon Aug 13, 2007 9:08 pm**

looks very nice,proves it can be done well. this is a good benchmark for other site comparison.

Posted: **Tue Aug 14, 2007 10:05 pm**

best pic job i have seen in a long while. They deserve lots of recommendations on that job alone!

Posted: **Tue Aug 14, 2007 10:10 pm**

NickSills wrote:60 tonnes of rubble cleared in 4 hours!:

What, 60t in 4hrs with that small machine?

Posted: **Tue Aug 14, 2007 10:27 pm**

only 15 t an hour

andy

Posted: **Tue Aug 14, 2007 11:09 pm**

It doesn't look like 60t's worth either...

But it is a nice job...

Did they use edging stones where the drive meets the highway? Sorry to put a dampner on things but I couldn't spot them...!!!???

Posted: **Wed Aug 15, 2007 12:47 am**

its hard to say 60 ton is a sh!tload of rubble
lets just say it was a lot of rubble
we did 2 grab lorries(big ones ) full yesterday with a 1.5 tonner and 3 barrows
why would they need edging stones ted?
IME the toe of the concrete gets thickened up at the edge to300- 450 mm
??
LLL

Posted: **Wed Aug 15, 2007 4:13 am**

Some of the best pics of pic I've seen - in the end, it's a lump of f***n concrete trying to pretend - no wonder we have surface water probs - "I've always wanted some fiberglass Doric columns - just replaced my bell tower shiplap with pvc and lowered the ceiling with hardboard." For God's sake , let the earth breathe - permeable solutions everytime. Make's me angry.

Posted: **Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:22 am**

you off to the climate camp suggers??
:;):
LLL

Posted: **Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:46 am**

I was never a fan of PIC but in fairness I have to say that it's an excellent looking job. (for mass concrete

)

Â£80/m. Would it have cost around the same to do it in flags and blocks?

Posted: **Wed Aug 15, 2007 9:30 am**

Edging stones serve two purposes:-

a) as the car leaves the pavement, its wheels will go onto the edging stones which should be set slightly higher than the pavement and the drive... they will then go down on to the driveway but the raised edging stone will ensure the weight of the car is transferred fully on to the top of the slab and not onto the edge of it... thus providing some additional protection to the slab.

b) when the council decide to repave the pavement and send a gang out, if the crew were to make a mistake when lifting the old slabs or breaking some concrete next to the driveway, they are only likely to damage your edging stones and not the driveway... edging stones can be replaced cheaply and relatively easily. But if the gang were to damage your PIC, the whole slab might need to come up and getting the council to cough up for this might be a legal nightmare one could do without.

The Brew Cabin

P.i.c. - a success story at last - Recent pics of my pic drive and patio