Driveways
Block paving, resin bound, tarmac or setts — whichever surface you choose, the work that decides how long it lasts happens before a single block goes down.
Tell us what you need and we’ll get straight back to you.
Surfaces
Each one suits a different property, budget and amount of traffic. Here’s the honest version of what you get with each.
Individual concrete or clay blocks laid on sand over a compacted sub-base, held by haunched edging and finished with kiln-dried sand.
Natural aggregate mixed with clear resin and trowelled over a solid base to give a smooth, seamless, porous surface.
Hot-laid and rolled, giving a hard-wearing surface fast. Best value once you get onto larger areas and long drives.
Granite and sandstone setts for period and stone-built properties around Leeds where concrete block would look wrong.
Groundworks & drainage
Most failed driveways in Leeds didn’t fail at the surface. They failed underneath, or they failed because the water had nowhere sensible to go.
Old surface broken out, dug down to a firm formation, and the waste taken off site properly rather than dumped down the side of the house.
MOT Type 1 laid and compacted in layers to the depth the ground and traffic call for, with geotextile membrane where the subsoil is soft.
Across thresholds and garage doors, connected properly so water leaves the driveway instead of pooling at the point it can do most damage.
Where surface water can’t go to a permeable border, a correctly sized soakaway keeps you compliant and keeps the drive dry.
Set out so water always runs away from the house and the garage, and so the finished surface meets thresholds and paths at the right height.
Haunched edge restraints, kerb lines and steps that keep the whole surface locked together instead of creeping outwards.
Also worth knowing
A tired driveway isn’t always a write-off. Often it needs lifting, correcting and relaying — for a fraction of a full replacement.
We take the blocks up, find out what moved, put the base right and relay with the original blocks so the finish matches.
Where edging was never haunched, the pattern opens up and joints widen. New restraint and re-laying pulls it back together.
Pressure washing, fresh kiln-dried sand and optional sealing to hold colour and slow down weeds and moss.
Questions
What people ask us before booking a new driveway in Leeds.
All four last well when the base under them is right. Block paving is the easiest to repair because blocks lift individually; resin gives a seamless, weed-free finish; tarmac is the most cost-effective over a big area; natural stone setts look the part on period properties. The base and the drainage decide the lifespan far more than the surface does.
Sometimes — resin and tarmac can occasionally be overlaid onto sound existing concrete or tarmac. If the surface underneath is cracked, moving or poorly drained, overlaying just hides the problem for a year or two, so we’d dig out instead and tell you why.
It depends on the ground conditions and what’s going to be parked on it. A domestic car driveway needs a good deal more depth than most people expect, and anything taking vans or regular heavy use needs more again. We’ll confirm the build-up in your written quote.
We can prepare the driveway side and lay up to the kerb line. The crossing itself is licensed and carried out under the local highway authority — we’ll explain how that works for your street when we quote.
Yes, and it’s a common job. We lift the affected area, find out why it settled — usually a soft spot or water tracking through — correct the base and relay the same blocks so it matches.
Absolutely. Herringbone at 45 or 90 degrees, stretcher bond, basketweave, contrasting double borders, circle features and inset numbers are all doable. We’ll show you options at the quote stage.
Send your postcode and a rough size and we’ll arrange a time to come and measure up.