Driveway extension (crushed rock)

[joez]

Hi All, just after some advice.

My Garage/Workshop is about 5m away from where my driveway ends. I am going to extend it to the garage with some brick edging and crushed rock.

My question is do I need to put anything under the crushed rock before I compact it down? Do I need some sort of weed mat to stop weeds?


TIA

Joe

[Barry_White]

Make sure you remove all vegitation and put down a bed of at least 50mm of granite road base and compact it.

[Barry_White]

Make sure you remove all vegitation and put down a bed of at least 50mm of granite road base and compact it.

[Barry_White]

Make sure you remove all vegitation and put down a bed of at least 50mm of granite road base and compact it.

[Sir Stinkalot]

What was that again Barry

When we moved into our place the driveway was nothing but dirt and was washing away quickly.
As a quick fix to get over the winter I put in a 100mm layer of road base. This was then compacted with a plate compactor.
I have found that grass and weeds still manage to find a home in compacted road base. This may be just because they are growing from the top or they may be working their way up from the bottom ..... not really sure on this one.
I would put down a weed control mat to be on the safe side .... for that size area the price really wouldn't be much and then you know that you are protected. Anything growing from the top can be easily removed. If you dont put the mat down you may very well waste good woodworking time on the weekend removing weeds.

[Barry_White]

Hi Stinky

I would dare say your weeds and grass are coming from seed that is in the road base, blown there by the wind or washed there by the rain over a period of time. The road base I am talking about is deep subsoil granite which is some times hard to come by.

But as you are probaly aware that weeds and grass will find a hold in any crack in paving or concrete no matter what you do if there is the slightest amount of soil or moisture.

I live along side of the New England Highway and the grass and weeds actually grows up through the slightest crack in the bitumum. Probaly the only real cure is to use something like Roundup, and even that will only work for a period of time because it only works on foliage down into the roots. When the next lot of seeds come along the life cycle starts all over again.

And even weed mats only work temporarly. Newspaper will do just as good as weed mats and works out cheaper.

They only true driveway treatment in the long run is probaly concrete with no cracks.

Although not very enviromentaly friendly petrol or power kerosine will keep weeds away for quite a while also.