Tell me about your gravel driveway

[NetZeroZealot]

Ours definitely needs redoing.

I am considering using a plastic grid under the gravel to keep it in place.

Has anyone tried this? Were you pleased with it?

It costs about twice as much as using gravel on its own, but maybe it looks better and lasts longer?

Please could anyone who has gravel with a grid contribute? I too have the same question.

My BIL has gravel with the grid and it's fine but the grid becomes exposed where the cars drive in really easily. I think you'd have to have a lot of stones down to stop it from happening. We have just installed gravel on our drive without a grid and so far no issues and really pleased with how it looks.

Noisy, PITA, cat toilet

The grids are amazing! We have a gravel drive without grids and then an area in the garden that is gravel with grids which we did after the drive. Now we want grids on the drive.

I like the fact it is noisy. We have had a spate of amazon delivery thefts on our road and we haven't been affected. The police think the noise of the gravel puts the thieves off!

The grids just keep everything in place, it's easier to rake over too somehow.

I have gravel on a grid as the drive has both a slope and a curve so some movement with the gravel.

the grid is not foolproof but assume better than nothing. I’ve have vans, trucks and heavy machinary on the drive with minimal impact.

My neighbour has installed much chunkier gravel, which seems to work. It doesn't stick to the tyres. It has proper foundations with a layer wacked down on top.

I think the mats just go bald and you can see them where the gravel has moved.

I had a stabilised gravel system at an old house. It worked brilliantly. I think the people saying the plastic modules become exposed probably didn't put down enough gravel. Don't underestimate the amount of gravel you'll need - and it's useful to order a little extra to top up once everything has had time to settle and "squash" down. We also had a gravel strip of block paving at the entrance to the drive which also help stop the traveling issue.

We used to have a septic tank and an oil boiler and the tankers for both used to park on the drive with no issues.

I would advise don't get too small stones as they tend to stick in your shoes and you'll find you track them into the house.

don't even think about it if you have any sort of slope.

Otherwise I'm a fan of a gravel driveway. The crunchiness sounds posh.

May I ask- with the modules down, and enough gravel, how is it for moving things like wheelie bins over? That's my concern if we had it- wheelie bins, wheelchairs etc. Normal gravel isn't great for either.

How is the gridded gravel when it comes to wheeling bins/barrows/wheelchairs over it? We are trying to decide right now what to do with our drive, it's between gridded gravel and some sort of resin, but the sort of resin type drive we like is not permeable so would not only be expensive, we'd need planning permission and soakaways as well.

We have gravel driveways with geogrids with pink chips on top.
The photo shows mid point. (The synthetic turf that the dog is standing on is a red herring. It was not part of the process. Just used it as a doormat while we were still work in progress.)
You scrape your ground flat. Then add a very generous layer of fine aggregate, then you lay your grids, then you add your top layer of chips. Takes quite a few weekends and evenings to get to this stage.

Just don’t buy it too small. Previous owner put tiny gravel down and it gets trodden into the house all the time, then it skitters across the room and hides under every piece of furniture 🥵

If we had space - and we don't - you could park a lorry on our drive.
The grids are fab for drainage. The secret is the measuring and the use of a large spirit level. Ours have been installed for two years and we have not had a puddle on them.
DH installed it himself but he did have considerable relevant experience.

With the grids underneath the wheelie bins are really easy to wheel. Much easier than before. Same with wheel chair-much easier than gridless

I agree with pp cats love it as a toilet. I love the sound it makes when I pull up though 😂

"Noisy, PITA, cat toilet"

Depends on the size of gravel you use. 20mm gravel is uncomfortable for cats to walk on so they won't use it as a toilet. Pea gravel size I'd agree with you.

I have a gravel driveway, no grid, with the bigger sized pebbles, very thick layer of gravel though - it's fine, I like it.

I have grid and gravel for the base of my sheds, not drive way, it kind of acts as a foundation for the sheds (no concrete base). Not sure why you would put grid on a driveway, what advantages it gives, surely the exposed grid wouldn't look great?

I have gravel without a grid, on a hill.

It does accumulate a little bit at the bottom of the hill, but not enough for me to be upset about it.

HOWEVER - it is a weed magnet. All the edges are overgrown now because I don't want to spray because it's over my well, weed burning was satisfying, but even doing it more weekends than I didn't, it didn't keep up with weed growth, neither did pulling them (I'd pull a couple of big handfuls every time I left the house, and was still behind)

No. Just no. Noisy, becomes cat litter, starts growing weeds through it, and lots of bits of gravel constantly ping onto the public footpath.

Ridiculously high maintenance, and incredibly annoying. I don't know anyone who hasn't regretted a gravel driveway.

We have gravel with a grid and love it. We don't seem to get a lot of weeds and haven't needed to use any weed killer, I just pull a few on occasion. No puddling issues. I shower the muck-rolling dogs in the drive and even then it doesn't puddle. In fact, drainage was one of the reasons our landscape designer recommended it.

I don't notice that it's a cat toilet - our local cats seem to go more for the flower beds 😡😂. Moving the bins over it isn't a problem. We get a bit of a top up every couple of years when it starts to compact, but our grid has never noticeably shown through. I have one pair of trainers (New Balance 327s) that seem to like to pick stones up in the treads, but everything else seems fine.

So, contrary to @BatchCookBabe's experience, we don't find it high maintenance and don't regret it.

@Daysnconfuddled

Not sure why you would put grid on a driveway, what advantages it gives, surely the exposed grid wouldn't look great?

It holds the under layers of gravel in place, so only the top layer is loose. You don't see the grid unless the gravel gets really low

Many thanks to everyone commenting. This is all very helpful. Any other comments would be appreciated too!

Thanks for igniting my thread @BlueMongoose

A pleasure, I assure you- I'm grateful that you posted. I think it has persuaded me to go for gravel + grids. I have concerns about resin, though the chap who'll be doing it was more in favour of a specific type of resin (not the usual domestic sort, more the sort used in heritage car parks, due to the specific layout here), but that would need both planning permission and a lot of drainage work.

The trouble is our drive is big so the cost difference is several thousands.
our first gravel driveway has just disappeared on car tyres after 20 years!

We had a wheelchair user in the household and they managed fine. Pushchairs the same and wheelie bins were no trouble at all. Bear in mind though we had quite small gravel - which was good for wheeling over - but got tracked into the house as I mentioned. If you went for bigger gravel - you'd solve the tracking in problem but might well make things harder for any wheelchair users. Just go with whatever is more important to you.

Interesting that you can use it for a shed foundation.

We have gravel all round the house, but the previous owner put the shed on concrete slabs. The gravel would drain better.