Grass and milkcrate driveways

D.M. Procida was thinking very hard :

I don't think you would need to go down deeper than removing the concrete at all. The milk-crates are around 2" thick.

Have a look at cellweb, I think 20cm of rejects will support the largest HGV in most cases (generally rejects are no goodwithout this plastic support as they roall around like Brighton beach, I'm told this gave problems when used as a no fines sub base for floors locally, they moved and the floor screed cracked up).

AJH

D.M. Procida coughed up some electrons that declared:

My neighbour claimed a similar result by laying aggregate (eg railway ballast or similar coarse rocky stuff) and adding an inch or so of soil to the top. Some of the soil sinks in. Grass grows. If vehicle cuts through soil or grass, it meets rock almost immediately.

The only problem might be that the grass may dry out quicker in summer.

Cheers

Tim

I've done the same here..somewhat by accident. Got a lot of gouging along the verge so I filled it up with limestone. Grass grew back. Good surface for occasional use. The limestone drains it and prevents excessive mud.

Heavy traffic will wear white tracks in it, tho.

Do you specifically want grass, or a free draining, low maintenance, inexpensive car parking surface.

If the latter, try gravel. I removed the concrete on my drive (obviously laid at 4 or 5 different times & a right dogs breakfast), dug down about

I have a gravel drive. It's one of the things I have on my list *not* to have in my next house. It gets everywhere, needs regular topping up, provides a convenient litter tray for the local cats, I've twice had punctures because of flints in the gravel getting into tyres, anything you drop (tyre dust caps are the "best") is lost and gone forever, it gets walked into the house, garage & shed if you walk across it in muddy boots, it gets stuck in the soles of shoes, the mower sucks it up at the edges, you can't easily jack cars up on it (to swap the tyres punctured by the flints), you can't easily crawl under cars to work on them, it provides a nice propogation medium for weeds...

It's damnable stuff.

I suspect it's 'shingle' not 'gravel'.

Mine doesn't :-)

Never done it. Never needed to. Rake it even a couple of times a year.

Rarely, happened a bit when it first went down, but not often now.

Not happened to me in 5 years.

Agree on that one. Unless its ferrous.

Nope!

if you walk across it in muddy boots, it gets stuck in the soles of shoes,

Nope. 20mm doesn't.

Got rid of the grass, covered it in gravel.

True, but nothing a scaffold board can't sort out.

I go out with a weed spray a couple of times a year, 5 mins kills off anything that appears.

I suspect you have 'pea shingle' where the aggregate is around 10mm - no good for a drive. You need 20mm gravel and it needs containment on all sides. In my case a wall, a slab path & those rounded over edge thingys sunk in so only an inch shows.

Don't really have any problems with it, it's been the perfect no maintenance surface.

I want grass.

One by one various neighbours have dug up their front lawns to put down concrete, so that they can park their his'n'her cars (it seems that every family in the street has a big saloon car for the man and a Ford Fiesta for the wife) on the drive, so I think it would be nice to reverse that trend.

Daniele

Screwfix have plastic matting in their "spring specials" catalogue, specifically for this ...

how thick was the type1 Dave? ta Jim

And then a few years down the line after another estate has done the same, they wonder why the area is starting to flood more frequently! John

I have recently worked at a house where the tarmac for the drive was removed some years ago and was replaced with grass.

The present gardner has only worked there for a year (he came with the new owners). He was telling me that no matter how much it rains it never gets waterlogged. He also never has to water that section any more than the rest of the lawn.

Adam

IIRC 75 - 100mm.

Apparently, it's a serious problem for the water table. Whereas grass cover allows water to soak into the ground slowly, concrete means that it pours straight into the drains and is dealt with by the sewer systems.

This also means more work for the sewer systems and water treatment works.

My little driveway isn't going to make much of a difference of course.

Daniele

That's what I used, give or take.,

You need a bit more if serious axle loads are going to use it.

"D.M. Procida" wrote in message news:1iyfme2.cvijph1vtt14yN% snipped-for-privacy@apple-juice.co.uk...

It shouldn't connect to the sewer system!

But it does if the water runs off into the road drains

Storm drains then.