need to ask you about your drive way please.

[deanychip]

Ok, we desperately need ours doing.
I have had companies round and there is:
Tarmac with brick edging
Flag stones
imprinted concrete stuff.

prices from £2,300 to £12k

what have you got and why did you chose it and what are the positives and negatives of what you have got, what do i need to consider??????

mine is brick block paving.

It was here when we bought the house.

Negatives are bloody weeds . The drive is huge, so there's an enormous surface area of cracks for the little feckers monkeys to grow.

yeah, not keen on block paving for that reason..

We have just had ours done. Tarmac with brick edging. Was much cheaper than block paving although I dont think it lasts any longer. It looks very smart!

Ours is brickweave but we are going to take it up and replace with shingle.
Brick weave is awful for drainage - our drive slopes down to the garage which floods every time it rains.
Shingle is much cheaper than paving, looks much nicer IMO and is much better for drainage.

we have shingle, it was here when we moved it
cons - weeds, crap to push p/chair across and kids can't ride bikes on it
pros - apparently deters burglars (it crunchs), you can hear people coming

dont do imprint concrete incase you ever have any problems with your drains...if someone has to dig through it it will leave a patch where they reistate....same with bitmac. Block paving or flagging is the best option, because if you ever want to change your driveway or repair it ir it sinks or gets oil stains you can just change/ move the blocks of flags.

Ours is flagged

you can get block paving sealed btw with sometihng called resin bond this should stop the weed growth and before they lay the blocks down they should put a weed barrier (like a roll of mesh) down under the sand to stop weeks coming up through the blocks

lol weeds not weeks!!!!

You need to be aware of the new planning regs for paving front gardens, which come into effect 1st October.

Paving your Front Garden

Planning permission
From 1 October 2008 new rules apply for householders wanting to pave over their front gardens.

You will NOT need planning permission if a new driveway uses permeable (or porous) surfacing which allows water to drain through, such as gravel, permeable concrete block paving or porous asphalt, or if the rainwater is directed to a lawn or border to drain naturally.

If the surface to be covered is more than five square metres planning permission will be needed for laying traditional, impermeable driveways that do not control rainwater running off onto roads.

more info here

We currently have a mix of concrete with large shingle on top, and block paving. Weeds an absolute nightmare, and the stones get brought into the house by dd (and on people's shoes).

We are about to resurface in imprinted concrete, which will be pretty much maintenance free, and comes in a wide range of designs and colours.

Tarmac would look awful in our location (very countrysidey).

Brick block paving. The only downside is the moss that keeps popping up, but I just go out every couple of months and scrape it up.

The actual middle of the drive is tarmac (which the builders put down), we then had the drive widened so we could get both cars on side by side so the paving is at each side of the tarmac.

Cost was around £2000, this was around 5 years ago now.

Thanks every one, and thanks chippy for that info, a couple of the builders have mentioned this to me but very vague in their answers to my many questions!I am worried about drainage tbh.

So, imprinted concrete is out because of the reasons mentioned but also the cost, it is so expensive.

I like the sound of the tarmac with brick edging.

Once again, thanks all.

My cousin has shingle/gravelly stuff. Used as a loo for every cat in the neighbourhood!

Message withdrawn

Love brick paving! I even love the weeds, but we couldn't afford it when we moved here. We have gravel now, which Is great, noisy (deterant for burglars) and drains well. And we get weeds coming through too.