OT'ish: resin or block paving for driveway?

I think the shiny resin looks tacky (for the same reason I haven't used sealant) my block paving is on a dry-mix bed, with weed membrane on top, then the blocks, never gets weeds ...

Nothing lasts forever. The nearest thing that did in my life was the neighbour and my dad both deciding to cast extremely thick slabs of reinforced concrete with no expansion joints except at the end where it abutted the road.

Those lasted at least 50 years each with no maintenance

I have gravel . Every year it needs to be weeded or be sprayed off. Rain and cars bring in mud and seeds.

Brick paviours get weeds in the cracks and sometimes collapse.

Tarmac/resin ends up with grass in the middle eventually.

You cant win. Nature will get you.

Just pick the maintenance/appearance compromise you like best

It will.

Weed membranes are totally useless against seeds dropped on top, and against dust and dirt washed into any cracks by rain

Well it's been down over 10 years, and the only place I have to spray is the gaps round the edges with the footpath, neighbour's drive or my walls. That said, Cadent have dug-up a couple of m^2 of it this month, remains to be seen how good a job they've done of replacing it ...

There's a lot of resin driveways around here, and they tend to look grubby very quickly. Especially the light coloured ones.

If you can afford it, go for stone slabs. You can't get York stone any more, but there are other similar things around.

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, No mail snipped-for-privacy@aolbin.com writes

You'll get weeds with paviors. What you should also get with them is drainage (topical currently !) as the water should run through between the blocks, whereas with a resin surface, it will have to run off the edge of the drive, which may or may not be a good place for the water to end up.

Adrian

we've had blocks for 30+ years. Water drains through the gaps, so you don't get a build up of water anywhere. Is Resin allowed nowadays? I though drainage was paramount. Yes, weeds do grow in the gaps, but there are weapons to deal with the problem.

Weeds do not come up from below. Just leave your car for a couple of periods of rain and see how much dirt is deposited on your car's paintwork. Every time it rains the same dirt will be deposited in the cracks between your paving bricks. Many plants and weeds distribute their seeds by wind. You just need one of these to get trapped in the paving bricks gap and the roots will grow into the deposited dirt AND the sand used to fill the gaps when the paving bricks were installed.

Wait a couple of growing seasons and unless you do some weed gardening or regularly apply some weed killer you will find that your paving bricks are not weed free. Paving bricks also trap moisture in the cracks so moss can become a problem.

The Youtube videos I've seen on resin drives say that they are porous, as is the tarmac they use beneath the resin top.

I used this stuff on my last paving job. Remains to be seen if it works!

We have a couple of cedars which produce lots of needles, so it'll not be block paving here when it comes to it.

My 7-years old tarmac hasn't. It gets a few weeds at the edge (granite blocks in mortar), but not in the middle. The shaded areas do get moss forming on them, but BAC once every couple of years deals with that. The previous drive, which was probably 30 years old, also didn't get weeds in the middle.

Possibly you didn't get it installed by the Irishman who knocked on your front door offering a cheap rate using spare tarmac left over from the road he was repairing :)

Porous resin and tarmac must never be allowed to freeze or it breaks up.

MOT type 1 isn't porous, there is a later spec that is, and it is required to be porous..

The neighbour has a concrete (poured) drive (tinted), and it still looks good. One reason it still looks good, is the pour was equipped with some rebar. And the slab from the street to the house, is one piece. It doesn't even have expansion slots cut in it. The first slot is cut right at the garage door. The floor of the garage was also done with the same pour. The garage opens on both ends, and the slab on the other side of the garage, is also part of the pour. Must be nice to have money.

Paul

I've waited ten years, what's going to change?

First Google hit

MOT Type 1 is permeable, allowing for excellent drainage and acting as an exceptional weed suppressant. It meets the Department of Transports Highway Works specifications and is a hugely popular choice for commercial and home construction.

Again, a quick google suggest otherwise. Water drains through them and a tarmac/resin surface is flexible enough to withstand freezing.

On porous tarmac without a resin topping.

"Because of their high void space and ability to allow expansion of water to ice, freeze-thaw cycles have little effect"

Do you pressure wash and then re-sand every couple of years? What about moss?