What does driveway paving cost in Perth?

A driveway is quoted as one number for supply and lay, wet, on a prepared base. What moves it is what is underneath and how much of it has to come out, and neither of those is visible in a square metre count. Send us your driveway rather than the measurements and we will price the whole job.

Can you pave over an existing concrete driveway?

Sometimes, and it depends entirely on the concrete. Sound slab with enough height at the garage door and at the kerb, and an overlay is a good option. Cracked or moving slab, and the crack comes back through the new surface within a couple of years, so it has to come out.

Which pavers are strong enough for a driveway?

Clay and concrete pavers made for driveways, granite and bluestone at driveway thickness, and porcelain that is rated for vehicle traffic. Thickness and rating matter more than the material family. Indoor tiles and thin pavers made for a courtyard will not do it, whatever the base is like.

Do I need council approval for my driveway?

You need it for the crossover, which is the section from your boundary out to the kerb, because that is on council land. The part inside your boundary is yours. Every Perth council has its own crossover specification and most contribute towards the first one, so check with your local government before the job is priced.

Is herringbone actually stronger, or does it just look traditional?

It is genuinely stronger. In a herringbone bond no joint runs continuously in the direction a wheel pushes, so the pavers lock against each other instead of sliding. That is why it is the bond used on roads and heavy-traffic paving, not just on driveways.

How long does a driveway take?

A standard suburban driveway is usually a few days on site once the base is right, and longer if the old surface has to come out first. The base and the falls take as long as they take, and rushing that part is the whole reason we get called back to other people's driveways.

What about permeable paving?

Permeable paving lets water through the joints rather than shedding it, which suits a site with nowhere to send stormwater. It is a different build entirely, with an open graded base and open joints, so it is not something you convert a wet laid driveway into later. Ask about it before the base goes in, not after.

A driveway of large format charcoal stone pavers running from the street kerb to the garage of a rendered Perth home

Driveway paving Perth

Driveway paving in Perth has to do something no other paving on the property does, which is carry a car every day for twenty years. We lay driveways wet, on a full mortar bed over a base built for the load, in porcelain, natural stone, clay and concrete pavers.

Bedded to carry a car, not to look right on day one
A base built for twenty years of daily traffic
Large-format porcelain and natural stone

(08) 6186 7478

Send us your driveway

A photo from the street and a rough size is enough to price it.

New driveways, replacements and crossovers

We pave new driveways, take up driveways that have failed and relay them, and lay the crossover to the kerb with the rest of the job.

Anywhere between Two Rocks and Mandurah. The person who quotes it is the person who lays it.

A new driveway
From the garage apron to the kerb. Base, falls, bond and edge restraint decided before anything is laid, because none of them can be fixed afterwards.
Replacing a failed one
Lifting a driveway that has rutted, sunk or spread, correcting what is underneath it, and relaying. The old pavers can sometimes come back down.
The crossover
The strip between your boundary and the kerb belongs to the council and is built to their specification. We lay it with the driveway so the two match.

What a driveway has to take

A standing load, in one spot

A car parked in the same place every night is a point load repeated ten thousand times. That is what finds a soft patch in the base.

Turning and braking

Wheels scuff sideways at the garage door and at the kerb. A bond that does not interlock lets individual pavers walk out of line.

Every drop of its own water

In Perth stormwater has to stay on the property. A driveway either falls somewhere it can go, or it finds its own way into the garage.

The width of a car, not a path

Cuts land in the wheel tracks unless the bond is set out from the centre. That is a decision made with a string line before the first paver.

A driveway is mostly the part you never see

Perth is sand. Sand is a fine subgrade when it is confined and compacted and a terrible one when it is not, which is why so many driveways here look right for two summers and then start to dish. What follows is the order it goes in.

Compacted road base graded flat on a driveway with a mortar bed being screeded over it before paving

Subgrade
Excavated and compacted
Topsoil, roots and fill come out. What is left is compacted in layers and checked, not just raked flat and paved over.
Base
Crushed limestone or road base
Laid and compacted in lifts. This is the layer that spreads the wheel load out, and it is the layer people save money on.
Falls
Set before anything is laid
Water has to leave the paving and reach somewhere it is allowed to go. A fall cannot be added to a finished driveway.
Mortar bed
Full bed, wet, every paver
The whole underside of each paver is supported. Nothing bridges a void, so nothing drops when the ground below it settles.
Joints
Grouted, not sanded
Sand joints in a driveway wash out, blow away and let ants in underneath. Grouted joints make the surface one piece.

Two driveways can look identical on the day they are finished and be five years apart in how long they last. All of the difference is in that list.

Laying patterns, and which ones take a car

The bond is not only a look. On a driveway it decides whether the surface behaves as one interlocked sheet or as a few thousand separate pieces.

Herringbone

The strongest bond there is for a driveway, because no joint runs continuously in the direction a wheel pushes. It is the traditional answer for clay and concrete pavers and it is more cutting at every edge.

Stretcher bond

Courses offset by half a paver, the same bond as a brick wall. Quick, familiar and fine across a driveway, but it needs the long joints running across the traffic rather than along it.

Ashlar

Mixed sizes in random courses. It suits natural stone, breaks up a wide driveway that would otherwise read as a slab, and it is the fussiest of the four to set out.

Large format

Big porcelain or stone units, minimal joints, the quietest surface of the four. On a driveway the unit has to be rated for vehicles and thick enough for it, which rules out most indoor tiles.

The crossover where a paved driveway meets the street kerb, with mown verge lawn and a street tree beside it

The crossover belongs to the council

The strip between your front boundary and the road is verge, and it is the council's land. The driveway that crosses it is a crossover, and every Perth council requires its construction to be approved before it is built.

Councils publish their own crossover specification, and most contribute towards the cost of a property's first paved or concrete crossover when it is built to that specification. The rules differ between the City of Stirling, the City of Perth and every other local government, so the answer for your street is the one on your council's site.

Practically, this means the crossover is a separate approval on the same job. It is worth settling before the driveway is priced, because the finish and the levels at the kerb are set by the council rather than by you.

We lay the crossover to the council's specification and match it to the driveway behind it.

An old brick driveway sunk into two shallow ruts along the wheel tracks with weeds through the open joints

How a Perth driveway tells you the base was wrong

Driveways fail from the bottom up and announce it at the surface, usually about three summers in. Two of these together is worth a look.

Two shallow ruts have formed along the wheel tracks
The paving has dropped where it meets the garage apron or the kerb
A puddle sits in the same place for a day after rain
Pavers along the outside edge have crept outwards and opened the joints
Individual pavers rock or click under a tyre
Sand has washed out of the joints and weeds or ants have taken them over

A rutted driveway is almost never a paver problem. The pavers are usually fine and the base under them is not, which is why sanding the joints and pressure washing it changes nothing.

Taking up paving that has failed and relaying it is about half of what we do.

Driveway paving questions

Dark charcoal stone driveway paving beside a charcoal rendered garage wall and timber batten screen

Send us your driveway and we will price it properly

A photo from the street, a rough length and width, and whether anything is coming out first. If the surface can be saved and only the base is wrong, we will say so.

(08) 6186 7478

Call us Get a quote

Driveway paving Perth

New driveways, replacements and crossovers

What a driveway has to take

A driveway is mostly the part you never see

Subgrade

Base

Falls

Mortar bed

Joints

Laying patterns, and which ones take a car

Herringbone

Stretcher bond

Ashlar

Large format

The crossover belongs to the council

How a Perth driveway tells you the base was wrong

Driveway paving questions

What does driveway paving cost in Perth?+

Can you pave over an existing concrete driveway?+

Which pavers are strong enough for a driveway?+

Do I need council approval for my driveway?+

Is herringbone actually stronger, or does it just look traditional?+

How long does a driveway take?+

What about permeable paving?+

Send us your driveway and we will price it properly