Retaining pavement- ideas/solutions needed please?

[Safety First]

Hi all,
I have a pavement retaining issue that I could really do with some help on please?

Running alongside our drive, but about 5 few inches higher, is a tarmac pavement.- Given the height difference, the tarmac is retained with concrete 'beam' things about a metre long (how deep?). To date the retainers have been held in by i. their sunken depth (?mm), ii) by some very token tarmac 'flaunching' iii) the four or so inches of stone-chips compressed up against our drive.

So, I recently cut about a foot off the side of the drive in order to plant a hedgerow.This means that any compression between the retainers and the drive is lost. We will be planting in here...

I need to replace the compression to stop the pavement collapsing in: cheaply, quickly and ideally in such a way that the method will be
hidden while the hedging (firethorn!) grows....

So how would you do it?

The retainers are about a metre long and some are already leaning, so i need to fix them tight.I don't know if they would break if only supported centrally (one fixing per retainer) or if they need one at each end?.

i could set bars? into concrete although i expect rocks would make digging a nightmare. Alternatively do I find something to span the gap to transfer the load across to the drive? These posts, or spans would allow planting in between, but which method and materials?

Any thoughts very gratefully received.
Tom

Untitled

• Safety First
• 27 Aug 2013
• 1

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

The edging kerbs need to be set in a concrete haunch, have a look here: http://www.pavingexpert.com/edging3.htm

Anything else will very likely fail.

 

[Safety First]

The edging kerbs need to be set in a concrete haunch, have a look here: http://www.pavingexpert.com/edging3.htm

Anything else will very likely fail.

Thanks for the link. It is helpful in that I can see how the kerbs should have been set, and now knowing that they have been bodged I can see a haunch of tarmac, but this is not effective material for haunching, is it?

The trouble is, the 'ideal' is not my starting point.I neglected to mention our fence Angle iron and square mesh. The angle iron fence posts are set against the kerb edges and seem to be holding some kerbs in place quite well. I can't really remove the fence, kerbs and reset the whole lot...

I'd have to close the pavement off- and it's not mine to work on....

While I am glad to read up on the ideal, I have to come up with an alternative, which is where people often venture their ideas...

What about setting kerbs at 90 degrees, with haunching, between the two faces of my drive, and the kerbs? Acting as props? Surely under compression they would hold...? But how many- at each end?

I think I'll call a builder...
Cheers,
Tom

There must be something between the industry standard method and a certain failure?