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Tarmac depth for a private road.


epsilonGreedy

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The seller of my plot is obliged to return and finish the private road shared between 4 plots. My problem is that I would like to know what the finished level of this road is likely to be but the seller is reluctant to be drawn on a precise spec for the finishing work. He has been thoroughly decent on all other aspects of the plot sale and services installation, in fact he is badgering two of the self builders to crack on with a pending drainage pipe that will cut across the private road because he wants to avoid a subsequent dispute should his tarmac capping subside over the drainage trench.

 

The current site road is comprised of a 400mm deep base of large grade rubble and leveled with a temporary finish of limestone/chalk MOT-1 type hardcore, this gets a bit sticky after rain but otherwise the site road is very stable when HGVs arrive in all sorts of weather.

 

Some responses on another site suggest the the finial capping of the road surface will raise the finished level by about 75mm formed from:

 

https://www.mybuilder.com/questions/v/15358/mimimum-depth-of-hardcore-and-tarmac-required-for-residential-drive

Quote

50mm base layer of tarmac followed by a 25mm wearing course should be fine. 

 

Is this a sensible depth to base my calculations on?

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On the access road we used 50mm binder with 30mm top.  That was onto the many many tons of compacted Type 1 we had used for the construction access road.  We did the min we could get away with without being too skimpy (we don't own it). Using it are only us, rarely our neighbour if he wants to get to his bottom land (he owns access)  and an occasional tractor going into field behind us.  We had to do 300sqm so its wasn't cheap.

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Just now, joe90 said:

I used old road scrapings on top of existing road stone and the tarmac contractor said 50mm top layer was sufficient for our drive, he has done that and given us a guarantee.

We were offered this method too.  It seems a good way to do it.  In the end we went with a different contractor as one offering scalpings couldn't meet our timescales, would have gone with it otherwise.

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3 hours ago, lizzie said:

We were offered this method too.  It seems a good way to do it.  In the end we went with a different contractor as one offering scalpings couldn't meet our timescales, would have gone with it otherwise.

I love the old road scalpings. I have used them on my temp drive over to get to the road. They have really locked up, and during the heat last summer, seem to have all melted together. A contractor told me last year that you are not allowed to use them on new build properties, due to them potentally being a contaminated material. Ant idea if this is true, as i can get a bloody huge load for £200

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@Big Jimbo I’ve not heard anything about potential contamination.....another scare story perhaps.

 

If you can get them that cheap I would be tempted to go for it and hire in the equipment to lay it down.  Sounds a steal and who will be asking for details of where it came from. Our build was signed off on the day road laying was going on in all the heat last year as far as I know he didnt ask the provenance of it!

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3 minutes ago, lizzie said:

@Big Jimbo I’ve not heard anything about potential contamination.....another scare story perhaps.

 

If you can get them that cheap I would be tempted to go for it and hire in the equipment to lay it down.  Sounds a steal and who will be asking for details of where it came from. Our build was signed off on the day road laying was going on in all the heat last year as far as I know he didnt ask the provenance of it!

I'm a bit of a chancer, and so much cheaper than MOT

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So @Big Jimbo is your road going to be adopted or is it your own ..? Planings or scalpings cannot be used as hardcore for an adoptable highway due to the potential for inclusion of contaminants hence why the contractor may say this. 

 

Putting a scalpings base down is pretty easy though but you need a decent roller. Double drum Bomag is ideal, it seriously compacts the lumps and if done on a warm day you will also get some tar binding. The downside is it’s not that permeable so you need to lay it with a fall as otherwise you will get puddles and it will start to break up when it gets cold. 

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9 hours ago, Triassic said:

Out of interest, how do they get tarmac to be permeable? 

 

From what I understand they use less fines and more regular sized gravel in the mix so it doesn’t lock together as tightly 

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