Gravel drive

[Cherryblossom200]

Hi everyone,

I've just completed an extension on my house, the back of my house looks fab. But the front of the house needs help. I inherited a driveway which is park paving, and part concrete of something like that. It looks a bit of a mess!

I've completely drained my money and looking at a cheaper alternative. Plus my drive is quite big and I'm not a fan of loads of paving as I think it looks a bit odd on large drives. I'd ideally like get some pretty light grey stones and pave it. But I read that's not a good idea on a flat surface?

This this a definitely a no no? How do you get around it?!

Many thanks!

We’ve recently moved into a house that has a gravel driveway. We thought “how lovely, a wonderful posh drive that sounds delightful when walking or driving on it”. Trust me, it’s the absolute worst thing ever. Any type of shoe with a sole that’s moulded like trainers or wellies ends up full of the stones and you have to flick them out. You can’t brush leaves or twigs off it easily, and blowing with a leaf blower just blows the tiny pebbles. We’ve discovered it’s not of the the best quality, the previous owners who put it down must have had it done cheap, but it’s awful. We’re having it all removed and replaced with block paving in the autumn. Honestly, please think hard before putting a gravel driveway in….we hate it.

Thanks! I'll have to come up with an alternative then 😛

Want to say the same as the pp - always stuck in shoes then falling out in the house to be trodden on barefoot because we take shoes off at the door. Scratched up the floorboards too. Dog also goes nuts when anyone steps on it.

Gravel drives are good for hearing people coming. I believe the police even recommend them in areas with high crime.

They are also good for flicking small stones at your car and very, very good for being a constant weed nuisance.

Hated ours! constant weeds, constant stones stuck in shoes and in footwells of cars and in the lobby of the house. Cats are drawn to it and like to poo in it. All round hated it 🤣

Our local highways dept are not a fan of gravel drives as the stones get dragged out onto the road and cause a skid hazard. They ask for new drives to be solid materials for at least 5m back from the edge of the road

I've got a gravel drive, approx 2 car lengths. I then have a concrete path between flowerbeds from the drive to to the house.

• it does need weeding (or spraying).
• the gravel does disperse, I generally brush back from the tarmac path a couple of times a year, but don't lose a lot. The house was built about 25 years ago, and about 12 years ago had it topped up. It could maybe do with another load now.
• I don't find it gets stuck in shoes etc, maybe it depends on the gravel size.
• when the kids were small going over it with a pushchair from the house was painful.
• you can hear people coming.

I like the look of block paving, but my friends one needs weeding as well.

I'm happy enough with it.

And one corner of it is a good nursery for verbena bonariensis seedlings which keep self seedings there and I let them grow on then transplant 😊.----

Yeah I forgot our cat used the gravel feature behind our back door as a massive litter tray.

The gravel ends up getting spread across the pavement and road. So annoying!

Chasing squirrels my driveway sounds like yours, it also goes down the side of my house to the garage (which I don't use for a car) as it's too narrow to get down! So gravel would look pretty. I've got boarders on the side to keep the gravel in.

I'm just not sure if I can put gravel on paving slabs. Although I've seen these plastic honeycomb things that the gravel sits in which might solve the problem.

We have one, and I can always hear if someone is walking on it, or a car arriving. My husband has one pair of shoes that collects gravel, but otherwise ok.

It's strange, I have pea shingle on my raised patio area, I have two cats and both of them don't use it to litter in 🧐

Cats don't poo on mine, or the pea shingle area I have round the back.
They do however poo in/on the soil under the hedge between my drive and next doors.

I wonder approximately how much it costs to gravel?! I'm thinking of doing it myself 😬 am I mad?!

I like gravel but fully understand the points above. The critical thing to prevent those problems is to have big gravel - 20mm won't get caught in your shoes and be walked into the house - also doesn't really attract cats. It won't really get caught in the car tyres, but will get spread around and so it's best to have a deep strip of paving at the entrance to the drive to catch the gravel and stop it spreading into the road.

You do however need to have a properly prepared driveway just like any other surface - dug out, compacted with MOT1 etc before you spread the gravel. If you don't the weight of vehicles will cause ruts.

Ok thanks, much appreciated 🙏

I think it depends a lot on the type of house, and area that needs to be covered. Large expanses of block paving without an offsetting amount of lawn/planting just look like car parks to me. In those cases gravel, of the right size not to get caught in trainers etc, is a good solution. Especially for period houses where block paving always looks out of place. You might be better with cobbles or flagstones in those cases, but they’ll be multiples the cost of block paving if done properly. But I agree a solid area of some sort between the drive and the highway/pavement is essential. For smaller areas, to park 3 or 3 cars on, block paving is the most practical solution, even if not always the most sympathetic. Bear in mind also that planning regs changed a few years ago and you can’t now just put a non porous / impermeable drive down without having the right system to manage surface water run off

We have a shingle drive, we fully intended to replace it with either block paving or resin. But decided against it, for security purposes.