Block paving services in Twickenham
Seven things, all of them block paving. Pick the one that sounds like your driveway, or tell us what is happening and we will tell you which it is.
Most people arrive knowing the symptom, not the job
Very few people ring up asking for a sub-base rebuild. They ring up because the drive has sunk by the garage, or because two cars no longer fit, or because the front of the house looks tired.
So it is worth saying which of these is which. Broadly, if the blocks themselves are still sound, you are probably looking at a repair or a re-lay, and both cost a fraction of a new driveway. If the paving is at the end of its life, or there is no driveway there yet, you are looking at a new build. If the council is involved because you need a crossover, the surfacing choice gets made for you before anything else.
If you are not sure which of those you are, that is completely normal. Send us a note about it and we will tell you straight, including when the answer is that you do not need us yet.
New here? Start with block paving driveways in Twickenham for the overview, then come back to whichever of these fits.
- New driveway installation
A driveway built from the ground up, laid out around your frontage rather than squeezed into it.
- Block paving repairs
Sunken patches, rutted bays, broken blocks and failed edges put right without replacing the whole drive.
- Lifting and re-laying
When the blocks are sound but the base underneath them never was, lifting and re-laying costs far less than starting again.
- Permeable block paving
The surfacing Richmond upon Thames expects, built so rainwater soaks away inside your boundary instead of running into the road.
- Driveway extensions and widening
Room for the second car, with new paving matched as closely as possible to what is already down.
- Groundworks and sub-bases
Excavation, sub-base and compaction. The part nobody ever sees, and the only part that decides whether a driveway lasts.
- Edging, kerbs and boundary walls
Edge restraints, entrance aprons, brick piers and low front walls. What holds the paving in and finishes the frontage.
Herringbone at 45° to the direction of travel, tight joints, and the channel drain set flush at the edge course.
The specification is the same whichever job it is
Whether we are laying a whole new driveway or lifting forty square metres of somebody else’s, the build underneath is done the same way. There is not a budget version.
- Ground taken out to depth and carted away, not levelled off and built over
- Geotextile membrane between subgrade and sub-base, every time
- Sub-base compacted in layers, not tipped and rolled once
- Edge restraints bedded and haunched in concrete before any block is laid
- Falls set deliberately, away from the house and to a drainage point that exists
- Cuts made with a saw, not knocked in with a bolster and filled
- Joints filled, vibrated, and topped up again once it has weathered
Four questions that change what a driveway costs
Answer these before you accept any quote, ours included. Each one can move the price by more than the choice of block does.
Do you need planning permission?
Usually not, if the water stays on your land. But Twickenham sits in the most conservation-dense borough in London, and inside a conservation area the answer changes. Work through it here.
Do you need a dropped kerb, and in what order?
Richmond upon Thames will not build the crossover until the hard standing behind it is finished. Getting that sequence wrong costs people months and a non-refundable charge. The charges and the stages.
What is actually under your frontage?
Gravel takes a standard sub-base and a soakaway. Clay takes neither, and needs more depth and a drainage design. It is a twenty-minute trial hole and it changes the price. What should be under a driveway.
Is block paving even the right surface?
For most frontages here, yes. For a few, honestly not. We have written down which is which rather than pretend one surface suits every house. Block paving vs resin, tarmac and gravel.
Thinking about your driveway?
Tell us about your driveway and your plans. We’ll come and look at it, talk you through the options and put a written quote in front of you. Free, and no obligation.
We normally reply within 24 hours.