The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Mon Mar 21, 2005 9:12 pm**

Hi

I have just bought a house with a large courtyard as the main garden.

Currently the courtyard has gravel stones covering the whole thing (around 120 sq m). It has a gated entrance in one corner and a garage in the other.

I want to remove the gravel and grow grass - this will require that the driveway goes straight through the grass. In order to accomplish this without spoiling the look I want to use Cellular paving.

This brings up a whole host of other questions:
1. Where do I buy Cellular paving (anyone know any contractors in the Rugby area that do this stuff?) I have searched the internet and can't really find anything useful.

2. How much am I looking to pay for 12 - 15 metres of driveway?

3. When I remove the gravel stones and dig the garden should I leave the driveway section as compacted earth as a base for the driveway and then base the cellular system on top of this base?

4. Once the cellular system is in place and the grass seeds have been planted, how long will it be before I can drive over the grass (I presume the seeds will need some time to germinate before they are driven over.)

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Brett

PS does anyone want enough white gravel stones to cover 120 sq m ? :laugh:

Posted: **Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:35 pm**

There is a common misconception that cell paving systems allow you to have a surface that looks like grass but behaves like a hard pavement. Well, when properly constructed they do behave as a hard pavement, but the grass cannot cope with regular traffic.

All of these systems work wonderfully well for occasional vehicle overrun. The weak link in the system is the grass itself. Not even the hard wearing sports grasses can cope with being run over twice a day, every day, week-in and week-out. The growing medium becomes too compcted, so no gases and damn little mositure can reach the tender roots, and even if this wasn't the case, the roots themselves just can't cope with being squashed over and over again.

I have dozens of photos of cell paver and grass paving installations that are now bald patches of reinforced mud because the installer or the designer didn't understand the meaning of the adjective "occasional". These systems are intended to cope with being overrun maybe once a week, or less. They are useless as driveways where the car(s) traffic back and forth several times each day.

Anyway, on to your questions....

1 - Cooper Clarke/Heiton in Tamworth - 01827 63709

2 - 75-150 quid, depending on type

3 - Cell pavers need a specially designed and constructed sub-base. What you have is highly unlikely to be suitable.

4 - In theory, you can traffic the cells immediately. In fact, the seeds are probably better able to withstand trafficking than is the germinated grass! Most commercial projects, where grass paving is provided as emergency access lane or overspill parking for "occasional" use, try to keep out the traffioc for 6-8 weeks, depending on the time of year.

The Brew Cabin

Cellular paving question - Cellular paving