Tarmac and line marking

Tarmac does not carry the car. The stone under it carries the car, and tarmac is the waterproof jacket over the top. So the job starts with a dig out, not with a delivery. The topsoil and any soft ground come out, a geotextile membrane goes down so the stone and the subsoil never mix, and then compacted hardcore goes in, usually around 150 mm on a house drive and more where vans and deliveries will turn. Skip the membrane and the stone slowly sinks into the ground over three winters and the surface dips where the wheels sit. The next thing that decides everything is the fall. Water has to run away from the house and into a gully or a drainage channel, never towards the door and never into the neighbour’s garden. On a drive that slopes down to the house we put a channel drain across the entrance and connect it properly, because in a heavy October downpour a drive is a river. Since 2010 a new or replacement front drive that drains onto the public road is also a planning issue, so we either fall it to a soakaway on your own ground or use a permeable build up. It is worth getting right, it is not expensive at the start and it is very expensive to undo. Then the surface itself: a binder course of coarser material laid and rolled hot, and a finer wearing course over it, two layers, joined at the edges against a hard kerb or edging so nothing crumbles away. A single thin layer laid straight onto old cracked concrete looks perfect for a year and then telegraphs every crack underneath it. And we do not lay in frost or heavy rain, because tarmac that cools before it is rolled never reaches density and will ravel out in stones by the second winter.

Marking out a yard or a car park

Lines are set out to a plan, not by eye: standard bays about 2.5 by 5 metres, wider accessible bays with hatching to the side and the wheelchair symbol, arrows, give way markings and hatched fire routes where they are needed. The surface has to be fully cured before marking, so a new car park is marked a couple of weeks after it is laid. We use a hard wearing road paint on smaller jobs and thermoplastic where the traffic justifies it, which is melted onto the surface and lasts years rather than a season. Remarking an existing car park is usually a weekend job, and it does more for how a business looks than most things costing the same money.