We get water collecting in the lane adjacent to our drive, we had a channel drain put in, but the lane needs leveling now into the drain as the water sits in the middle of the lane. Not too bad in the picture as its the middle of Summer but in the winter it really builds up.
We put down some hardcore as a temporary measure but this got mostly washed away over winter and generally makes a dusty mess that gets everywhere.
We had some quotes to re-tarmac the area which is roughly 30smq and it was around £2.5k, however it was coming out half that to do it in just "base coat". Would this be sufficient? It doesn't need to look pretty, its a farm lane, it just need to be level into the drain.
Any cheaper alternatives to consider? Most places seem to want more to concrete it.
A base course alone would be OK, but not particularly pretty.
I would also look to have an edge restraing at each end of the bitmac 'patch', otherwise it will go the same way as the sub-base aggregate you put down....it would take a bit longer, but it *would* happen. A free edge on bitmac is always looking to crumble, and if you then traffic that free edge, you shorten its lifespan by a fator of 10.
30m² - 3T or thereabouts of blacktop....for 2.5k! Someone's on a good earner! :p
Thanks for the reply Tony. Alternatively I’ve been quoted £1100 for an ‘overlay’ of 30/40mm. Do you think that would be sufficient as a cheaper alternative?
There’s no existing tarmac under the sun-base I put down on the left and there are some quite deep pot hole but they did say they would fill them before doing the overlay.
30/40mm doesn't seem very much as a single layer over that highly unreliable sub-base (and I use that term in its loosest possible sense!)
The minimum I would ever have laid as a single layer would be 60mm, a variation of the minimum spec for driveway surfacing which is 40mm of base/binder and 20mm of surface/wearing
30m2 of base at 60/70mm be fine, excluding any preparation work, I'd be looking at around £1300.00+VAT personally I would just lay it without any kerbing, lay a metre or so ramp at each end.
RW Gale Ltd - Civils & Surfacing Contractors based in Somerset
