Ace and Sons Roofing and Groundworks
Get a price 0800 193 4212 07925 068877
Menu
A finished gravel driveway with a charcoal block paved edge and a new tarmac apron at the road.

Driveways in Orpington

Tarmac, gravel and block paving, with the base dug, the edges set and the levels taken before anything goes down.

Find us on

  • Google
  • Checkatrade
  • Bark
  • Trustpilot
  • Yell.com
  • MyBuilder
  • Rated People
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • WhatsApp

What is under a drive

A drive carries a car, and a car is heavy in four small places. Whatever the surface is, what holds it up is the same: the soft ground dug out, a sub base of crushed stone put back and compacted in layers, and an edge set in concrete before the surface goes anywhere near it. The photograph here is that stage on a real drive: sub base in, edge course set, nothing on top yet.

The surface is the last thing to go down and the first thing to be judged. If the base under it was skipped, the surface tells you within two winters: gravel sinks into ruts, tarmac cracks along the wheel lines, blocks tip at the edge.

The edge

Every drive needs something holding its edge, or it spreads. On a gravel drive that is a block or a kerb set in concrete. On tarmac it is a kerb or an edge course. On block paving it is the edge course itself, haunched in concrete before the rest is laid.

Levels and falls

We take the levels before we dig, so the finished drive falls away from the house and towards somewhere the water can go. A drive that falls towards the front door is a drive that floods the porch.

A driveway with the crushed stone sub base laid and compacted and the block edge course set, before the surface went down.
Sub base in and the edge set. The gravel came after.

Gravel, tarmac and block, compared honestly

Each one is the right answer for somebody. This is what each one asks of you afterwards, what it needs at the road, and what it does with rain.

SurfaceMaintenanceAt the road edgeDrainage
GravelRake it back where the tyres push it, top it up every few years, pull the odd weed. It shows tyre marks and it hides oil.Needs a solid edge or a kerb, or it migrates onto the pavement. A tarmac apron at the road keeps it off the highway.Water goes straight through it. What happens next depends on the base under it and the ground under that.
TarmacVery little for years. Edges can crumble without a restraint. Oil marks stay. Weeds get in along cracks if it is left.Needs a proper apron and a kerb, laid to the same level as the pavement crossing.Sheds water. It needs somewhere for the water to go: a channel drain, a soakaway, a lawn or border. Not the pavement.
Block pavingWeeds in the joints, re-sanding, the occasional lifted block reset. It is the easiest surface to repair a patch of.The edge course is set in concrete first, so the field of blocks has something to push against.Standard block sheds water like tarmac. Permeable block lets it through, if the base under it is built for that.

Front gardens and the rules on rainwater

The rules that came in during 2008 say that if you pave more than five square metres of front garden with a surface that sheds water, the water has to be dealt with: either the surface is permeable, or it drains to a lawn, a border or a soakaway inside your boundary. Gravel and permeable block do the first. Tarmac and standard block do not on their own, so on those we build the drainage in and say what we are doing on the quote. We do not tell you a surface does something it does not.

A recent one

Before in the corner, as always.

A finished gravel driveway with charcoal block paved edging, running up to a red and a white garage door.
The same frontage before the work, with worn tarmac and a patchy grass verge.
Before.

A driveway

Worn tarmac lifted out and replaced with gravel over a block paved edge, with a new fence line beside it.

The same frontage from the side before the work: unmade ground and a patchy verge beside a red garage door.
The frontage from the side, before.
A finished black tarmac driveway running up to a house, with a white rendered retaining wall along one side and a painted white edge line.
The same drive before the work: worn tarmac with moss and leaves, and an old metal gate at the entrance.
Before.

A tarmac drive

Worn tarmac out, a new rendered retaining wall built along one side, and fresh tarmac laid up to the door.

A gravel driveway laid across the front of a stone house with a bay window, under a blue sky.
Gravel across the front of a stone house.

Driveways in Orpington, Sevenoaks, Biggin Hill, Brasted, Westerham, Oxted and Knockholt, and the area around them. Where we work.

Get a price

Tell us what the job is and roughly where it is. We will come and look at it.

We use what you send here to quote your job and nothing else. How we handle it.

A driveway with the sub base laid and the block edge set, before the surface went down.

What happens next

  1. Send the form, or ring us.
  2. We come and look at the job.
  3. You get a free written quote.

0800 193 4212Freephone07925 068877Mobile aceandsonss@gmail.com

Orpington, Kent, and the area around it.

or mobile 07925 068877 Call 0800 193 4212 Get a price