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Firstly, to set the record straight, the term TARMAC™ is a registered trade name and although it is commonly used to refer to this type of paving, the actual product name is tarmacadam. It is also known as bituminous macadam, or bitmac for short.
Everyone is familiar with tarmac but it is a much underrated paving material. Tarmacadam is durable, long lasting and, being available in a wide range of colours and border options, can form an attractive driveway for the front of your home.
Whether you require an existing driveway resurfacing or a brand new tarmac driveway, footpath or school playground, complete our online form to get your tarmac paving quote from a local expert installer.
The installation of a tarmacadam driveway can only be carried out by experienced professionals using the correct grade of macadam and appropriate compacting machinery.
You should always insist on seeing examples of their work before agreeing to use a particular contractor. And never have a tarmacadam driveway installed by anyone who has ‘some left over from another local job’.
Ideally your tarmac paving quote should be in writing. The quote should detail exactly what work is to be done and it should have a total fixed price for the whole job, not a cost per square metre and not just an estimate.
For a standard domestic driveway designed to take the weight of a family car, the area should be excavated to a depth of at least 180 mm.
This will allow for adequate thicknesses of the
Before the stone sub-base is constructed, all necessary drainage works should be installed.
Drainage systems such as aco drains, gullies, underground pipes and soak aways should deal with surface rainwater within the boundary of your housing plot. This is to prevent it from running onto the public highway which would fail to satisfy current legislation.
Either kerb stones or a block paving border should be fixed into position with haunched concrete either side.
This is to prevent the tarmac driveway from collapsing along its edge under the weight of your car.
The tarmac sub-base, or binder course as it it sometimes called, should be at least 50 mm thick.
The binder course is a bituminous mix containing 20 mm hard stone aggregate. Although the binder course is compacted flat, it has a more textured appearance than the final wearing course due to the larger pieces of aggregate.
The final wearing course of tarmac is a slightly different mix compared to the sub-base and should be at least 30 mm thick.
Again, it is a bituminous mix but this time with a 6 mm – 10 mm hard stone aggregate. Having smaller particles of aggregate, the wearing course has a much finer appearance on the surface.
To reduce the possibility of causing a damp problem in the walls of your home, the finished surface of your new tarmac driveway should be at least 150 mm below the damp proof membrane.
If you have an existing tarmac driveway which has become worn with use and perhaps developed cracks and minor pot holes, it may be possible to resurface it rather than excavate it and install a new tarmac driveway. However, resurfacing your driveway will obviously raise the surface and to avoid problems with damp in your home, the new surface should be at least 150 mm below the damp proof membrane of your home.
In order for the resurfacing to be successful the bulk of your existing driveway surface should be in tact, with just a few pot holes. If you can see more stone sub-base than tarmac you really should be installing a brand new driveway.
Before resurfacing your driveway, all loose debris should be brushed off and any pot holes filled with binder course of tarmac. It should then be sprayed with a bitumen tack coat to improve the adhesion of the new tarmac to the old surface. Finally, the final wearing course of tarmac should be compacted down to at least 30 mm thick.
Resurfacing a tarmac driveway is normally around half the price of installing a brand new tarmac driveway and your tarmac paving quote should reflect that. It may be useful to ask your chosen installer to quote for both options as a comparison.
Coloured tarmac is an ideal alternative to block paving, resin and aggregate paving and pattern imprinted concrete paving.
Coloured tarmac is available in red, green, terracotta, grey, orange, blue, and even white. Naturally coloured aggregates are used to ensure that the colour is permanent. Clear tarmac binder and coloured aggregate is mixed together with a pigment to help strengthen the colour to form coloured tarmacadam.
Coloured tarmac is laid and compacted in just the same way as ordinary black tarmac, and it’s just as durable, although understandably it is more expensive.
Permeable tarmac was introduced to meet stringent new legislation aimed at reducing the chances of localised flooding caused by householders paving over their front gardens.
Victorian drainage systems in densely populated urban areas struggle to cope with large amounts of rainwater running off paved gardens.
As a result SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems) legislation was introduced to force householders to install drainage systems into new driveway installations. To comply with SUDS legislation these drainage systems have to take all surface water to soakaways or rain gardens.
Permeable tarmac is open graded tarmacadam with a smaller amount of finely graded aggregates known as fines. This means that permeable tarmac has very small, interconnected pockets of air within it which allows water to penetrate.
Your tarmac paving quote for permeable tarmac should be no higher than for standard black tarmac.
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