How we build a drive
From the first phone call to the day we sweep up and hand it back. Most jobs run three to five working days.
You get in touch
Phone, the form, or email. We reply the same working day and book a visit that suits you.
Site visit
Half an hour. We measure up, check the fall and the damp course, and find out what is under the current surface.
Design and written quote
Area, build-up, edgings, drainage, colour and pattern, price. Emailed to you. Nothing to pay, no chasing calls.
Booking
You accept, we book a start date in writing and order materials. No deposit before this point.
Set up
Skip or grab lorry arranged, protection down where it is needed, and a word with you about parking and access for the week.
Dig out
Excavate to formation and cart the spoil away on a licensed ticket. This is where old concrete and forgotten services turn up, and where we tell you straight away if anything has changed.
Edgings
Kerbs, edgings or a soldier course set on concrete and haunched, to the finished level. Everything else is built off these.
Sub-base
MOT Type 1 laid in layers and compacted between each one, graded to fall away from the house. Usually 100mm to 150mm, deeper on soft ground.
Drainage
Channel drains, gullies or a soakaway installed and connected where the survey called for them. Levels checked with water, not by eye.
Laying
The surface goes down: resin trowelled, blocks laid and jointed, tarmac rolled hot, or slabs bedded on full mortar.
Finishing
Cuts tidied, joints filled, edges pointed, everything washed down and the road swept.
Handover
We walk it with you, hand over the written guarantee and the aftercare, and tell you when you can drive on it.
Living with the work
A drive being replaced means no parking on it for most of a week, and a skip or a grab lorry outside for part of it. We agree that with you before the start date rather than surprising you on day one. Where the road is narrow, we will say so and plan around the neighbours.
Bad weather moves dates. We would rather push a start by a few days than lay tarmac onto a soaked base or trowel resin in the wet, because both of those come back as a callout. If a date moves, we ring you, we do not just fail to arrive.
What changes a price mid-job, and what does not
The quoted price is fixed for the work on the quote. It changes only if the ground turns up something nobody could see: a concrete raft under the old surface, a live service in the wrong place, made ground that needs extra depth. In that case we stop, show you, price it, and get your agreement in writing before carrying on.
It does not change because the job took longer, because material went up, or because we found more square metres than we measured. Those are our problem, not yours.
Start with the site visit
Free, half an hour, and you get the written price by email afterwards.