Concrete Driveway

[domesticbadger]

I've been planning on extending a concrete hardstanding for an extra space, to the min. spec (4.8 x 2.4). It'd be going in place of a bit of turf, which incidentally doesn't actually go too deep before it ends up as hardcore (typical estate type property really, where below the top soil is basically all the compacted rubbish from the job!

The run-off is away from the highway and the council know about my plans, and are quite apathetic towards it all.

My plan would be to chuck some mesh in it, even though it's not likely to be there for that long, in the grand scheme of things.

I'm trying to corral some quotes together - for some reason it's been cracking on for nearly 2 years. I thought I'd get someone else in to save my time and knees a bit (I do work quite hard, so free time versus money is a bit of a trade off sometimes).

I was quite surprised to get a quote of well over a grand for it by a romany type fella, as it's as easy as they come (easy access, no real difficulties/challenges involved). It's changed my mind about the whole thing, and I thought I'll probably dig a fair bit of it out myself anyway... and as I'm going to do that, it won't be a great leap towards just getting a mix in.

Do you reckon I'm being a bit unrealistic expecting that someone might quote under a grand for the task? Or am I better just pulling my finger out.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

A grand is a bit cheeky. You'll need a skip to get rid of the tipsoil £200. If you have a good local grab man he might dig it out snd get rid of it for you for that price. Ideally you'd go down another 100mm them chuck some hardcore in & whack it down (3 tons say £120 if you buy it in dumpy bags, £30 for a whacker plate). Then blind it with sand, some DPM £30 ish, shutter it & get a volumetric mix truck in, be £150-£200 for that sort of volume (100mm thick so 1.25 cube ish).
Your Romany chap was probably planning on scraping the turf off & putting 50mm of sandy muck down...

 

[domesticbadger]

A grand is a bit cheeky. You'll need a skip to get rid of the tipsoil £200. If you have a good local grab man he might dig it out snd get rid of it for you for that price. Ideally you'd go down another 100mm them chuck some hardcore in & whack it down (3 tons say £120 if you buy it in dumpy bags, £30 for a whacker plate). Then blind it with sand, some DPM £30 ish, shutter it & get a volumetric mix truck in, be £150-£200 for that sort of volume (100mm thick so 1.25 cube ish).
Your Romany chap was probably planning on scraping the turf off & putting 50mm of sandy muck down...

I've had another one of around £900, but going to get a few others next week.

I'm hoping to get a price where I can be happy enough that doing it myself is only saving a couple of hundred, at which point getting someone to smash it all out in a day will seem like good value

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Aye. Just make sure you get what you pay for- if the quote says 100mm type 1 hardcore and they start shovelling halfbricks and broken bits of pipe in then you need to stop them right there