Foundation for driveway

loveisdivine

Hi all,

majority of our driveway is donegal quartz chippings. In front of the garage is was a 13m2 section of decking which was rotten and horrible when we purchased the house. We've finally removed the decking and want to lay more of the donegal quartz to match the rest of the drive.

Under the decking is a wooden frame and some weed block. Can I fill it in with a mix of soil/pebble that I have laying around, compact it down, more weed block, then lay the quartz? It's not going to have vehicles on it, just foot traffic.It's about 3 or 4 inches deep that needs to be filled with the soil/pebble mix and then topped with the quartz.

mickdw

loveisdivine wrote: »

Hi all,

majority of our driveway is donegal quartz chippings. In front of the garage is was a 13m2 section of decking which was rotten and horrible when we purchased the house. We've finally removed the decking and want to lay more of the donegal quartz to match the rest of the drive.

Under the decking is a wooden frame and some weed block. Can I fill it in with a mix of soil/pebble that I have laying around, compact it down, more weed block, then lay the quartz? It's not going to have vehicles on it, just foot traffic.It's about 3 or 4 inches deep that needs to be filled with the soil/pebble mix and then topped with the quartz.

I'd get some compactable stone just to ensure that clay type material doesn't start to come up through to surface.

loveisdivine

mickdw wrote: »

I'd get some compactable stone just to ensure that clay type material doesn't start to come up through to surface.

I also have maybe a tonne bag of a slate type stone that we removed from another part of the garden. Could I use that as a sub-layer?

mickdw

loveisdivine wrote: »

I also have maybe a tonne bag of a slate type stone that we removed from another part of the garden. Could I use that as a sub-layer?

Can sometimes tend to crumble but would be ok for an untrafficed area

my3cents

I'd always dig out any remaining soil before putting down any foundation. With a deck they don't bother and leave the soil behind so if it was me I'd be taking a good few inches off before putting down the foundation. If there is soil there it will eventually come out with traffic. A geotextile will prevent it coming directly through but on smaller areas like in this project when the ground is wet then the edges can eventually become muddy.

lgk

Use a proper geotextile instead of weedblock and you won't have issues with layers migrating.

loveisdivine

Thanks everyone. I'll follow all the advice. To be honest, the stones at the front are starting to look a bit sparse, so I'll probably be topping those up too.