I'm going to have a punt at digging up my current drive and re-doing it extending it to double the size to fit both cars on.

The area I'm extending to is basically dead space to the side of the current drive and is grass.

My plan and this is were you wonderful people come in to correct me ..

Dig up the current drive down to the hardcore, (it's a gravel drive) and remove the top soil, grass etc from the other part.

Add a new geo textile fabric layer and then new hardcore, compressed with a temper(? is it) machine, then a layer of ground gaurds and finally the new gravel on top. The old drive will need to be built up as will the grass area to make to all level.

The edges I'm planning to use treated gravel wood because it's easier to manipulate and will look nicer I think. I plan to dig them in slightly deep and secure in concrete.

Anything I've missed?

 

 

Make sure you put down a decent base.
Probably 8 inch of MOT stone as used on roads.
Failure to lay a good base will quickly be evident.
Crack on...

 

Dig up the grass and any soil - lay Type 1 to around 200mm (if the ground is really firm - stiff clay under you may be able to thin that to 150mm)
Lay your geotextile membrane at 1200g under hardcore between that and the soil.

Lay your top after using a tamping machine (like a whacker plate machine) to compact your type 1 - this should be done in 100 - 150mm layers but you should get away with it on the 200mm as it's only a driveway.

if you are putting gravel down I would put another geotextile membrane down too - you need to make sure that both the membrane used are porous otherwise you will get pooling. (the rain water etc needs to be able to seep through to the ground)

(different layers of material should be ideally separated by membranes - some people do some dont lol)

Gravel thickness should be 100mm, you probably could get away with 50 - 75mm but as it'll be driven on and parked on you want something substantial. IMO

(other option is to block pave where you will need to replace gravel with 50mm sand and then 60mm [min] blocks)

For the edging your idea will work but I would install that before laying the gravel and possibly hardcore as you will end up digging your materials up for the concreting and doing it that way (although you will need to be careful not to damage it) you will have edges to work to.

 

Cheers, so that was the plan, just have to be careful to keep everything level, might need to build a base layer for the edging.

Fence post question, I'm not sure if I want to get a spike or concrete it in, for my gate, what do you think?

 

Are you sure you want gravel? Most people get sick of the stones going everywhere after a while (all over the road and paths etc). And you will struggle to use a car jack on them

 

Ideally not no but I don't have the skills or spare cash to get it done well.

 

Its not all the difficult to do block paving or paving stones - you're doing the hard part by the ground work.

The other thing to consider is whilst you have everything dug up - consider putting a drain in. Underground land drain via a sump should be ok - make sure its drains to something though, like a existing manhole

 

Make sure you use a roller heavy enough to do the job both on the hardcore and top layers.

This usually means a two drum roller minimum to cope with the weight of modern cars. I've found single drum Bomags don't cut it anymore meaning the gravel shifts and ruts from vehicle traffic....As my old neighbours found out. Bear in mind a modern car can be upwards of two tonnes, the machine used compact the ground needs to exert a lot more force than that.

My gravel area (Cotswold chippings) is part of a bridle path so gets a lot of varied traffic. It's going to need the top layer redressed soon. The only problems I have with gravel shifting is from the gang of MAMLs tearing down the path on their mountain bikes at stupid speeds and locking their rear wheels up where the path narrows; I need to put some sort of speed hump or rumble strips in to slow them as one of these days they are going park themselves into the rear quarter of one of my cars as its blind reversing off...the ***** have already piled up after the leader crashed trying avoid a girl walking her dog! (bet they didn't put that headcam video onto youtube ).

 

So roller vs tamper?

 

Vibratory Roller.

The neighbour at my old house had theirs done with a whacker plate...their Audi Q3 (about 1600kg IIRC) rutted and shifted the gravel so much they couldn't open their garage door without having to shovel the gravel out the way!

 

That's not looking cheap ..

 

Probsbly looking at £100 plus delivery to rent a single drum Bomag for the weekend. It all depends on if you don't mind it shifting when being driven on/off...it's worse if the car has to turn.


Another thought; when digging it up check the condition of any services that run under there; gas/eleccy/CATV/water/sewer etc. As disturbing the ground may cause an issue; House opposite where I work replaced their Tarmac with gravel and have had repeated water mains bursting. After the digging the third hole they finally got the hint and replaced the whole pipe. Could be coincidental, but they only seemed have issues after laying the gravel.

 

150mm compacted hardcore sub-base Is more than adequate (as long as existing ground isn't to soft) they used to build houses 100yrs ago on 4" stone that still stand today.
Also driveline 50mm paviours are just fine for driveways, as long as not skimping on sub-base will not sink.

 

Is a temper enough for compression in your opinion?

 

A compactor plate you mean? A whacker? Yeah absolutely fine, even a baby one for a 20mm gravel drive.

 

Or if you're in no rush, drive and park your car on the sub-base for a few weeks - you'll see where the dips will start when the drive is finished

 

That's not a bad idea actually

 

How much you think it will end up costing doing yourself?

 

I had to buy a breaker which was an unexpected cost but ignoring my own tools.

£100 for 2t hardcore
£250 for high quality gravel
£20 for ground sheet thing
£70 to rent the compressing temper thing
£100 for edging and concrete
£100 for rubbish removal