Cost of a tarmac drive

coolagarry

I have a tarmac drive which is about 100 square yards in area. It is a simple rectangular shape with lawn on each side. Over the years it has become very shoddy with weeds growing on the sides (I do keep weedkilling them but they grow back) and a fair amount of loose tarmac/gravel on the surface.
A guy has offered to scrape off the top layer and re-surface the drive for £3000 (black) or £3500 (red). He says this will take about 4 tons of tarmacadam and is about a days work. He will actually be laying about 30mm of tarmac (a little bit thicker at the sides). He is not putting edging bricks down or anything like that.
Is this a reasonable quote?

micmac22

no, unless he is digging out old all foundations using 2-4 skips, put down new hard pack ect motorized digger . recommend you get some no obligation quotes in from other trades men yellow pages local free paper. ps if this guy has cold called you report him to trading standards and police.
((((not a 1 man job))))

labor, how many people are in the crew?
labor rates are at what would be charged "over the counter" round where I am, foreman is worth about £200/day if he's good, middle guy about £150 and the labourer about a £100. £50 - £70 a ton of tarmac.

keystone

Probably about £6ks worth even if you let the (text removed by MSE Forum Team) at it with the black stuff thats magically disappeared from the back of someone elses truck.

You'd better find out too if your local planners require you to apply for PP for creating a non-permeable surface ebven though it is a replacement. PP rules on this changed some time ago.

Cheers

rxbren

no need for planning permission if you have some way of controlling the water that will runoff from your drive (linear drains, rain garden, attenuation tank, soakaway etc)

as for the tarmac your better having some edging of some description (blocks, kerbs, flat/rolled edging etc) in place not only will it look neater but will also protect the outside edges from any damage from heavy objects/cars going over the edge onto something like grass

is there any dips or sags in your existing drive? if so these would need to be rectified before the topping is put on

depending on how the original tarmac was laid you may need a new base course as some "tarmacers" only do a bodge job and have no base course but only a wearing course so you may find when the top is removed there is nothing but stone below

also 6mm topping comes in at around £200 a ton so if your drive is 92m2 you will need about 6.5t

Nile

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coolagarry

Thank you all. As a result of your advice I had a serious discussion with the guy and gave the impression that I knew what I was talking about. The result is that my sags and dips will be rectified and whacked before the top coat is put on and we settled on £1700 ( He went for £1900, I went for £1500 and we split the difference) . Fortunately I have concrete edging each side of the drive.
Thanks again

keystone

and if you don't have existing arrangements for the control of water runoff from the previous driveway (yes bren I did say if) you will npw need a cosy chat with your planning department. m But I get the impression your contractor won'#t be bpthered by that. Slap it down, take the dosh and run is my impression.

Seriously - the guy starts at £3k, drops to just under £2k and hasa settlede at £1½k. Is there a hitching post in the road for his horse or have you compromised on the spec/work?

Cheers

keystone

Nile

This thread was doing perfectly well where it was actually.

Cheers

mo786uk

This has rubbish job all over it

he reduces his price by £1300? for a days work?

i think you will find it will look nice and then suddenly go very crap very quickly.

i doubt you will get any sympathy from the police or trading standards - its got poor workmanship written all over it

did he cold call on you or did you call him?