Mums Driveway Part 2
We ran out of the charcoal coloured bricks on Sunday, when the builders merchants were closed, so we switched to making a fence. Making the fence curved was pretty easy, just put the posts and supports in as normal. Hammer the boards on while they are still too big, and then do one long cut with the jig-saw right at the end.
Block paving is like a jigsaw puzzle; you do the edge pieces first, and then fill in the middle aftwards. The edge pieces need to be concreted in place, but the middle pieces can just be layed on compacted sand (which is on top of compacted MOT/hardcore). BTW kids, you don't need to concrete jigsaw puzzle pieces, the analogy finished quickly!
At this stage, we still have most of the existing concrete driveway to pull up.
Hoorrahhhhh. This last piece of the old driveway.
Steve's making the most of the skip, by compacting down the subsoil. Rather than dumping all of the old contrete, we dug out the soil that was under it, then filled in the hold with the old concrete, making a good firm base for the new driveway. Alas, we miscalculated, digging out too much soil. Even after smashing up all of the old driveway, we still weren't high enough so we needed to buy some MOT (hardcore).
A short while after the lorry dumpted three huge sacks of MOT, Steve had it fairly level, but there was a hump in the middle. Now we were too high! Doh!
The whacker plate made quick work of compacting the MOT - it even drives itself - look no hands!
A thin layer of sand, compacted down, and made dead flat (not level, because we want the rain water to run down the slope). It takes a fair while getting the levels right, but this bit is essential for a quality finish.
Now for the fun bit - putting the bricks down. Its back breaking, carring several hundred bricks, and bending down all day. It didn't help that the weather men got the forcast wrong.
Steve was a hero, doing all of the cutting (for the edge pieces) in the rain. We didn't quite finish though, time was running out, and so were the bricks. Also, still to do was the back gate, and a step/slope the other side of the gate. We made a slope up to the house door, so now the back gate was too low down, and there was an 8 inch drop the other side. Only one more weekend's worth to go though.
See Also
- Mums Driveway (part 1)
- You can see a few more photos as well as these ones in full size.