Should I hire a big wacker/roller?

[pilsbury]

Just finished laying MOT for my soon to be block paved drive. Before today had about 50-70mm compacted with my 60kg petrol wacker plate. Today I laid another 100mm and compacted with about 5 passes.

I did my best levelling out pre-compaction but it’s still a little bumpy. Not a bad effort though. I was just wondering if more passes tomorrow would be wise or to hire a big super heavy mofo to really stamp the sub base down as I’d hate for it not to be fully compacted and rut over time.

thoughts on whether my compactor is up for the job or what else would be better?

 

[John D v2.0]

it would be fun, but i can't see how you would need a big one for a drive. The standard one as long as you do it in layers it will be fine surely! Just go over it until the machine starts to bounce up and down i.e. it won't compact any more.
It can be compacted and not flat, that just means the quantities are not quite right. but it still won't move.
With 150mm+ it would be pretty solid. That's about what we did and there's no hint of movement after over 4 years. The weeds on the other hand...

 

[pilsbury]

Might go over a few more times today then. The wacker isn’t bouncing just yet. Takes a bit of time though as it’s 130sqm.

 

[scbk]

If it will only ever have small cars/foot traffic, I imagine it should be ok, if you whack it to death.
If there was going to be bigger vehicles on it (deliveries) it would want more than that imo. If there was a contractor nearby with a big vibrating roller, it wouldn't take them long to get it rock solid



Have a look at the paving expert website http://www.pavingexpert.com/subbase.htm

 

[John D v2.0]

Might go over a few more times today then. The wacker isn’t bouncing just yet. Takes a bit of time though as it’s 130sqm.

stealth boast there! ours was only less than 20sqm.

 

[pilsbury]

Paving expert is my go to.

John, whilst hopefully proud of the end result of my “bigger than yours” drive , at present it is causing me untold amounts of pain and stress. I’ve shifted and spread 54 tonne of MOT with a shovel! Close to tears......

 

[Nige F]

Paving expert is my go to.

John, whilst hopefully proud of the end result of my “bigger than yours” drive , at present it is causing me untold amounts of pain and stress. I’ve shifted and spread 54 tonne of MOT with a shovel! Close to tears......

If you're going to block pave it don't put too much sand on - 50mm is about right afaik. Just had our drive done, very well as it happens. Up the road a lady had to have her block paving taken up and renewed by " our" team, because previously someone had laid too thick a sand layer, and it was full of dips and hollows.

 

[pilsbury]

With the amount of MOT I’ve got, I recon 35-45 mm sand......

 

[cdbe]

I wacked mine down in layers with the plate then hired a roller for the day to finish off. Who knows whether it was necessary but nothings moved so worth the £40 for my peace of mind. What's also important is to fill all the voids, I used recycled MOT (crushed concrete) and found that some loads were a bit "stony" - the yard also sold concrete dust so I spread this on each layer before giving it the plate to shake it into the voids. Mine was approaching 100sqm but only 36 tonnes of MOT.

 

[pilsbury]

I too got “recycled” MOT. Basically crushed concrete that the company told me was to MOT1 spec. Mine however was the opposite way round. Quite a lot of fines. But for £195 for a full 18 tonne load was right up my cheap-ass street. I must say though it hasn’t compacted as much as I expected, probably due to the high fines content. My uncompacted 100mm ish final load was raked just under the base of my edging blocks and has just given me a 35mm drop for the sand once wackered.

 

[John D v2.0]

I bought i think 3 bags from Wickes, they were about 40 pounds each and seemed to whacker down really well. I am assuming they were fresh stone as they didn't look like concrete or anything, to be honest i didn't really know much so i just googled MOT1 and they were the nearest that i knew of.
I used 1 bag of sharp sand which i think gave 25-30 mm of screed which didn't seem to cause a problem.
I whacked over the top of the blocks after they were all in place.
Because it's a fair slope the kiln dried same kept getting washed out and it took a while for it to stabilise. I was a bit concerned in case the sharp sand would also shift but it seems to still be all okay.

 

[pilsbury]

Local places are fine for a bag or two..... but at £40 a pop for an 850kg bulk bag would have cost me over £2.5k. But I agree, on occasions I have “treated myself” to the odd bulk bag, the quality has been better.

 

[John D v2.0]

Local places are fine for a bag or two..... but at £40 a pop for an 850kg bulk bag would have cost me over £2.5k. But I agree, on occasions I have “treated myself” to the odd bulk bag, the quality has been better.

Well, if you want to build a motorway quality road you need to spend the money! Maybe you can get a ride on road roller, now that would be worth the money to hire

 

[Ian H]

Don’t you have a camera Pilsbury?

Looking to do my 130.1mtrs in the new year

 

[pilsbury]

Don’t you have a camera Pilsbury?

Looking to do my 130.1mtrs in the new year

What do you want pics of? Progress? Me in a mankini?