Driveway Laying Secrets From The Men Who Know

[Music] hello i'm roger bisbee from the skill builder channel we're back in northern ireland and the sun's shining and we're going to see another tobermore paving project now last year we came over and we watched the boys from sparring paving laying the patio they did a fantastic job of it and it's still looking really good one year down the line it looks beautiful and they've come back here to do the driveway they've nearly finished it and incredibly this is only two and a half days work to take it from this to this and we're going to take you through the whole job step by step in this video so you got off to a bit of a flying start here paul uh you've laid in the perimeter here yeah already yep which is bragging kerbstone so that's the bracken yeah and then on the main area you're going to use this shannon yeah slit that's a slight colored shannon and these are going to go around the edge that's the border two two rows of those yeah sienna sets yeah sandstone color okay and what this area here that's just the the front door area for a bit of a feature at the front door yeah so it's actually going to be filled in with the sandstone collar which is the reverse of the driveway area go on it and it'll be bordered with the shannon okay now these have got a prime top which is basically a very hard layer but it's actually all one piece that gives you enhanced color yeah very smooth very smooth finishing easy maintenance and basically it doesn't pit like some of the other no no it's a good good finish of a brick yeah and so they're all basically they've all got that prime top yeah that's it yeah and nice and smooth so they can the kids can skateboard on it and roll trollers across here and they've got this this little pencil chamfer here yeah which um just makes a maintenance a bit yeah sharper edge yeah yeah and and i know you can also get these with a bigger rib on them if you want the rumbled edge sort of like the curb yeah but but but in order to put a bit of space in for drainage between them so there's another version of this with a bigger rib so you get more spacing so the water percolates through so for people who need that sudden sustainable urban drainage system or whatever levels don't suit properly yeah yeah they're drainable okay brilliant [Music] now i just want to talk about the sub base here because it's very very important that you get this bit right so this is actually type 1 mot or as a guys who call it crush and run but the idea is it's scalping's it's really compacted down and they've rolled it over they've made sure it's absolutely firm and then on top of that they're going to put 50 ml of screeding sand and that will be run out that'll be whacker plated in and then they can begin to lay the paving on top of that and of course you may need a weed barrier if you want to put a geotextile in under this maybe before you put the screening sand on that will help as well but all these things as i say the boring bits there use up the money and you don't see a lot for them but if you don't do them then they use up even more money putting it right [Music] now let's talk about falls and getting the rain water away because obviously it's very very important that you do that now in this particular case we're okay because there's good falls on the land anyway everything is running the way that you'd want it to run and just one more thing by the way over there is loch nee which is going to take all the rain water from around here but if you're living in the middle of a town or something like that a lot of people will be running their rain water into the sewers which is a very bad thing to do because if we get heavy rain the sewers get overwhelmed and they have to let that sewage go into the rivers untreated that's all they can do so what we're trying to do all the time now is get all the surface water all the rain water away from the sewage system and slow it down that's the important thing we have to make sure that the rain water can percolate through and that way we do what we can to avoid the worst of this flooding that we seem to be getting all the time now so the important thing is that it's at least 150 millimeters below that damp proof course it can be more of course and then what we're looking for is a minimum of 10 millimeters in every meter so if you've got yourself a meter level you want to be dropping at least 10 millimeters over the length of that level now happily in this particular case we've set out the levels the guys have already set the levels out and it just happens that the bubble is just on the line here and that's the fall we've got which is nicely in there that's actually about 20 millimeters per meter which is plenty that's going to make sure the rain goes away [Music] to say that these shannon blocks go down quickly is an understatement sam the cameraman and myself just went off for a quick cup of tea we came back and look what they've done in those few minutes half the job's been done so you can see you get the bond right and paul's flying along now they can hardly keep up with him quite honestly once you've done the preparation once you've screeded that sand off the next bit just goes like crazy [Music] [Music] now you may have noticed that there's a shade variation on these shannon blocks and that's intentional it's supposed to give them a bit of character but what they're saying is break open three packs work out of three packs and then you can just mix and match them as you go now a feature of these shannon duo packs is that you get the two different sizes in the same pack so you can mix them around a bit if you just get the shannon it'll be this larger block on its own and you do that as a half bond like a brick pattern if you like but if you're using the two then you're going to get a staggered joint it's not always going to come halfway obviously it could just come a quarter way so you can see here that we've got a half bomb but obviously then you come up here and there's hardly any bond at all but back here it's back to a half bond again so how's this for one day's work absolutely crazy i can't believe the speed that these guys go at unusually they're not going to wait until they finish the job before they sand this section in and the reason for that is that it's a dried sand that they're using and they want to get it in before it rains it looks like it might rain tonight but if the sand is in when it's dry it goes in a lot better it filters down into all the gaps and all the cracks and then when you vibrate the whole thing over what it actually does vibrates the sand down but it also vibrates little bits of the other sand the screeding sand if you like up in between the blocks and locks the whole thing together it's very very important that you do that if you just brush it in with the fine sand and leave it you don't get quite the same lock and then you can get areas where it starts to sink [Music] so it's day two of the tobermoor block drive and you can see they've made amazing progress on the first day so on the second day they're going to get round continue that sweep all the way around and all that leaves then is the infield of paving that they're going to do around the front door so really quick progress the weather is held last night they were just sanding in this area here i said that it was because it might rain and they wanted to get it in in a dry and you can see now that that sand has gone in there really nicely very fine sand filled in all the gaps and it's looking absolutely fantastic [Music] now if you've never laid concrete paving blocks before you might wonder about the spacing but it's automatically taken care of by these nibs on the edge so when you put the two together those nibs maintain a gap having said that when you're running a line of blocks on a drive of this length you may find that they start to meander slightly so you really need to get a string line down there get yourself a couple of really nice straight lines are blocked and then you should keep even with that all the way but every so often you may find that the line starts to drift slightly even though you've put a string line in and what you can do there is just ease the block in or out slightly and you'll find that it straightens it out it's very forgiving because you're going to put this sand down in between the cracks if it turns out to be a couple of millimeters larger here or there you won't notice it but the other great thing is of course this does allow a little bit of drainage down through there and so it helps to get the water away and not having it running down concentrating in one area this sand this color match sand if you like is actually crushed granite which just goes beautifully down into the cracks now when paving gets wet it does deepen the color it enhances the look of it and changes as you can see here on this sienna block you'll also notice that a feature of this sienna block is this kind of sparkly aggregate that it's got in there which just picks up the sunlight and shines slightly so one of the key things to remember about tobermore products is that they have got its prime top which means that the pigment is concentrated they put the pigment in the bit that you can see rather than putting it through the whole block and that is a very hard wear layer there so that won't be wearing out anytime soon so what you get is a much harder wearing surface so it won't pit and start to show the aggregate and it also means that it retains the color fastness so years after laying it you'll still see that color it won't look all bleached out and washed out in the sun now i think it's fair to say that there are diys competent homeowners who would want to take on this kind of job themselves and there's nothing wrong with that but i think it's also fair to say that the majority of people would probably want to get a contractor in to do it somebody who's done it before and is experienced now the good news is that tobermoor have an approved contractor scheme they've got a network of contractors all across the country so there should be one near you and you can get a quote from those contractors but you can also get a drawing design done by tobermore that's done through the approved contractors which will show you a nice computer generated illustration of what the job's going to look like and what materials are being used so to become an approved contractor for toba more you have to have been trading for at least six months be a proper company you also have to show them three jobs and they need you to prove competency in laying out and surface preparation getting the falls right getting the right sub base down and also in cutting the slab so that you're accurate in the cutting and the general competency of the world so all these things come into play and of course tobermoor will go out and inspect those jobs and monitor them and make sure that those contractors are actually up to standard and maintain their standards throughout so if you need a good contractor like sparing's here then there will be one near you tober more approved [Music] paul is just sorting out the rainwater here because they're going to put two steps in here first one is already done these are purpose-made step risers and you glue them together with this polyurethane adhesive yeah yeah rather than sander cement because a much better way of doing it so one layer and then a bit of infill bit of infill and then another step up and that'll take you in flush to the the floor in the house and the important thing is to get those steps equal isn't it that's right not have them yeah so here we're having two five inch steps [Music] so it's day three of october more driveway project and they're on the home straight here they really are just doing this bit of paved area at the top finishing off the steps give the whole thing a sweep down and even the enthusiasm of a customer overnight they've even planted up this area here so it's all looking fantastic so in this paved area in front of the the garage in the front door they're using the sienna sandstone this is the larger format of the border tile the same pattern but in a larger size and it's just going to break it up basically give it a little bit of interest around the area and again you can see this glint this this aggregate coming through in the sunshine there just picking up little bit of sparkle [Music] [Music] so paul this is different sand you're not putting the same sand on this sienna bit that you were on the other bit yeah no this is just uh the normal dry sand yeah your dry sandwich the other stuff was silver just to match the other color of the brick better when it comes to doing these radiuses how do you actually get that curve it all depends on the area but on this one here we had a radius point in the middle that we were working what you just banged a spike in the ground and then we work off the radius point right around yeah yeah but uh sometimes uh the radius points don't work and you just have to you're just gonna bite it really yeah [Music] so it's just coming up to 12 o'clock on the third day and the boys from experience have done it again i am really quite amazed and i enjoyed being with him last time and i enjoyed it even more this time so there you go guys we'll just have to think up another little video that we can do so i can come back yeah hope they didn't get in a way too much either [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Skill Builder

Views: 125,692

Keywords: block paving, driveway installation, how to block pave, new driveway

Id: LMIzbK8WUEs

Length: 17min 11sec (1031 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2022