Covering concrete with gravel

npsmama

Out of pure laziness we're wondering if it would be OK to cover our ugly slippery concrete with gravel (well, slate chippings) without first removing the concrete.

Many thanks for any advice

angelavdavis

Is this for a driveway or patio?

There is a page here that talks about the downsides and safety issues of doing this.

TomsMom

My son's neighbour has done this. Looks OK until you walk on it and displace the gravel, it needs continually raking over to keep it looking nice.

benood

Yes of course it's fine - just make sure you get a decent depth of gravel - 2 inches say.

tanith

I think it can be quite dangerous as the gravel seems to move on the concrete surface and becomes slippery, we had this in a rented holiday home and twice I came a cropper my foot went scooting on the gravel and I went flying... I ended up with a badly twisted ankle, grazing and embedded gravel in my knee... it was a mess....

Kiran

angelavdavis wrote: »

Is this for a driveway or patio?

There is a page here that talks about the downsides and safety issues of doing this.

Paving exprt is an awesome site, Im a qualified Civil Engineer and I used to use it all the time when I started out.

benood wrote:

Yes of course it's fine - just make sure you get a decent depth of gravel - 2 inches say.

I'm affraid thats not the case. Increasing the depth only makes it harder to move on. The other problem with doing it is that there is no drainage through a concrete slab. You would definitely have to look into perferating the slab to prevent the drive resembling a gravel bottom river.

npsmama

Thank you.
I'm glad I asked!

bigdoozer

there are a number of resin bonded gravel applications available that will go straight onto concrete but its not a DIY job. Pm me and I can find the name of one I spoke to recently.

Mrs_Huggett

We used gravel to cover our ugly crazy paved front garden, but we dug out some beds replenishing the sour soil underneath, and dug out a new path and laid cobblestones, I love it but I wouldn't want to walk across it on a daily basis.

sparky883

I do not see how drainage can be an issue as water will not "hold" on the Concrete slab unless it already does, with or without gravel/slate.I'm not 100% though,Or even sure i should make my point,As do not really know anything about drives,Just thought it was a strange thing to say from a "civil enginneer".