Gravel Drive Quote, sound reasonable?

[MrChips]

Hi All,

Just hoping for a quick sense check on how much it should cost to have a gravel drive put in. I'm looking to put in a double length gravel drive, next to my existing garage and tarmac drive (1 Space).



This will involve digging out the area, putting in some timber sleeper "retaining" wall.... which won't need to be structural, and then laying the hardcore/gravel etc. Also would like them to remove the soil from the site.

I've had various quotes but they've all come out very differently.... from £1100 - £3000!! The company i'm thinking of using are quoting £1700 including taking the soil away. I'm hoping to get them down to £1500 but has anyone had something similar done? If so, the does this sound reasonable?

I'm not looking to cut corners, and want a decent job, so am not chasing the cheapest quotes. Just wanted to get some opinions on whether this sounded about right?

Cheers
MrChips

[MrChips]

Thanks Guys,

I'll pm m3jappa to see his thoughts too. Shame he's over in Essex tho!

Part of me is thinking of doing it myself but i'm not convinced it won't end up costing a fair bit (think i'd need to rent a digger, plus something to compact the hardcore etc?) and i'm not naive enough to think that i'd do it as neatly as a professional!

[MrChips]

mk1fan said:

Is the £1700 inclusive of VAT? What - if any - sub base are they proposing? Are you going to park on it or is it just a path? What edge detail are they going to do to retain the drive paving / tarmac? There looks to be quite a height difference between the 'wood' and your drive. It doesn't look like a railway sleeper is going to be big enough to accommodate this. How are the sleepers being retained?

Did you sort out your boundary issue?

Thanks for all the replys!

I prob should have put all this in the original post

The £1700 is inc Vat. They're quoting for digging it out, membrane, then 150mm of type1 Mot then 20-30mm of gravel. To retain it against the field bank, it'll be 2-3 sleepers high.

It's not as much of a slope as it looks (overall height rise is about 2 feet so the sleepers shouldn't need to be secured using posts/concrete but should be ok simply to lay the first one in a channel underneath the soil level, and make sure the sleepers are all bolted together securely?

The driveway tarmac already has a retaining border which looks like a thin strip of concrete so hopefully if the new subbase layer is compacted enough then I wouldn't expect any issues with the existing tarmac "shifting"?

The dimensions of the overall area are 11.5m x 2.8m. Oh and luckily there's no boundary issue (thanks for your input on the original post btw). It's all a bit complicated, but essentially there is nothing to designate this area as anything different from the rest of the front garden, so long as i'm using permeable surface then it shouldn't be an issue. Council haven't been v.helpful tbh!

The more I look at it, the more I think i'd rather leave it to the experts, maybe I can offer to labour for them instead so save a bit of cash (depends on how the contract out their labourers I guess!)

Cheers
Dave

Edited by MrChips on Thursday 30th April 08:28