Building a simple car park

[ToughButterCup]

This will be a small car park.

 

So far I have put some drainage piping under it, covered it with what was left over from our MOT 1 pile and levelled it with our digger.

I'd like to prettify it as cheaply as is sensible.

 

My thoughts are to roll it as flat as I can get it, put some of that black membrane down to suppress weeds, and then tip some 40 to dust on top of that. Roll that to with a mm of it's life and then wait for the rain to 'tighten things up'

 

And then put some pretty gravel on it. I know gravel isn't ideal : it moves..... But it's always the same old story: how do I do just enough to make it look a million dollars with only a hundred in my bank account?

 

I'm sure someone has faced this challenge before. May I plagiarise your ideas please?

 

[Construction Channel]

Pretty much as you have described. But make sure you only put 1-2” of gravel on it. Or even better if you use crushed stone it doesn’t move quite as much. 

[Ferdinand]

Edgings. Edgings are important.

 

And something to keep the gravel in the car park not the road.

 

We have some of the most expensive edgings because the bloke gave us a fixed price and said "choose any edging".

 

Edgings could be anything that retains the gravel - my current project has used 150mm x 50mm sixties knobbly concrete edgings that wer already on site, but angled bricks can work well.

 

For retaining gravel, a row of bricks on the edge can work - they just need to be slightly proud. Or even spaced bricks if the spacing makes gravel wedge between.

 

On gravel, the normal stuff rather than decorative can look fine. There is a thread about pricing somewhere, but I was paying approx £33 per bag for 8 or so, delivered. Some came from Wickes, but the Civil Eng. side of Buildbase had good prices. Or cheaper by the lorry from the Lancs version of Joe the Quarryman down the road.

 

F

Edited December 18, 2017 by Ferdinand

[PeterW]

I pay £13/ton delivered for a min of 15 tons. That’s standard golden gravel which is 5-7mm

[ToughButterCup]

45 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

[...]

Or cheaper by the lorry from the Lancs version of Joe the Quarryman down the road.

[...]

 

We have just the man....remember this?

 

Well, he's got what I need at a price I can afford.

[Russell griffiths]

Is this temporary or permanent?

i have found even with the black membrane you will get weeds

they can grow from top down as well as from bottom up

you will find you will get weeds from any form of seed spread be it the wind or birds or you wheeling the mower across the surface. 

Unless this is going to be the mutts nuts finished article I think I wouldn’t bother with the membrane. 

Get some roundup and give it a spray every now and again to keep the edges tidy. 

[Oz07]

angular gravel for the finished surface. Binds.

[ProDave]

Yes be careful what gravel you get.

 

You want crushed stones that will be angular and bind together.

 

Don't male the mistake I did once and got a load of "20mm gravel"  All lovely roundish stones. It was like driving on marbles, hopeless.

[ToughButterCup]

Must go to AngularRus  then...

[dpmiller]

Rolled road planings maybe?

[Roger440]

Have you been on pavingexpert?

[curlewhouse]

We got some road planings for £8 a tonne delivered as a temporary measure when the site got muddy, but I'm so pleased with how they've bedded in that I'm going to use them as the bed before my own gravel driveway goes in (the plan is to use ecogrid stuff in between to keep the gravel in place and the same eco grid where my driveway crosses the village green, but with grass growing through it on that part).

[joe90]

+1 on road plannings, I have put down 150 ton and it’s brill, compacted really well, just need to level it off and finish with tarmac when we have finished the house.

[Auchlossen]

Planings are good as a road surface, binding into a solid structure. However I am not sure what your objective is re water. You say you have put some drainage pipes in. The planings will make an impervious layer, they are after all macadam from roads, and will become as solid an impervious as a road when compressed, or even more so if you were to put some diesel into the mix. But if you want to create a free draining bed, then you should avoid planings and also Type1 [whose dust binds down into an impervious layer], and use broken rock as a base.

[Ferdinand]

I *would* use a membrane because it likely only to be perhaps 1-2% of the budget and will keep the materials separate.

[Gow]

On 29/12/2017 at 12:56, curlewhouse said:

(the plan is to use ecogrid stuff in between to keep the gravel in place and the same eco grid where my driveway crosses the village green, but with grass growing through it on that part).

Did you stick to your plan and use eco grid? If so, would you recommend using eco grid? Thanks

[ToughButterCup]

2 hours ago, Gow said:

Did you stick to your plan and use eco grid? If so, would you recommend using eco grid? Thanks

 

Oh God!   I  still haven't done it. BUT , work is scheduled for this October.

 

Plan (cross section and plan will be posted here) in September.... I think, definitely, more than likely, probably. Yeah. Hmmmm....

[Carrerahill]

On 18/12/2017 at 09:00, ToughButterCup said:

This will be a small car park.

 

So far I have put some drainage piping under it, covered it with what was left over from our MOT 1 pile and levelled it with our digger.

I'd like to prettify it as cheaply as is sensible.

 

My thoughts are to roll it as flat as I can get it, put some of that black membrane down to suppress weeds, and then tip some 40 to dust on top of that. Roll that to with a mm of it's life and then wait for the rain to 'tighten things up'

 

And then put some pretty gravel on it. I know gravel isn't ideal : it moves..... But it's always the same old story: how do I do just enough to make it look a million dollars with only a hundred in my bank account?

 

I'm sure someone has faced this challenge before. May I plagiarise your ideas please?

 

I would not put on 40-fines if you are going to put decorative gravel on it, that will impede drainage, I would just put down hardcore and compact it to within an inch of its life, then place a suitable gravel on top. That is what I did on our drive and some 4-5 years later it still looking as it should. 

[ToughButterCup]

Thanks @Carrerahill.

 

Current thinking is 

• dig out to 300 below FL >
• Mot 3 compacted >
• underlay  -300-  SWA to gate area - 3 - 4(?) core >
• underlay -310- 17mm duct for Fiber BB>
• embed junction box for BB (B4RN)
• EcoDeck 500>
• topsoil , rough grass mix>
• two rows of cobbles to curtilage set back 750mm  >   
• concrete nosing to road deck. >
• Blacktop to road edge .

Tea, medals.

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> Tea, medals.

 

Nice idea re the medals - you have campaign ribbons and all?

 

I just finished 70 m^2 of ecogrid 30 for pedestrian use. Fairly pleased although it's not cheap. The company that sells it was dodgy over delivery though. Paid for 'next day' and it turned up on day 3/4 (I forget). Asked them to sort less than 7.5T truck as we live on a narrow lane. Arrived in a van after the truck decided he couldn't be bothered (we get 7.5s regularly). Had to unload an entire van full by hand rather than with a hiab. A kind of couldn't-be-ar5ed attitude. 

[ToughButterCup]

It looks like you've used gravel to fill the grid. What sort of gravel did you use?

It looks really nice and I'm quite impressed

[larry]

We've put grids on our drive filled with 10/20 round shingle. Works well but wouldn't have got anything bigger in terms of the aggregate. 

Really rate the grids. Reduces movement significantly and much easier to push a buggy /Wheely bin whatever over it.

 

We did terram (from eBay) then MOT, sand layer and then the grids. Bought a second hand compactor for the MOT. 

Do get a few weeds I guess from seeds that make their way in but easy to remove.