The part nobody sees
Almost every surface that fails, fails because of what is underneath it. Not enough was dug out, the stone was not compacted, the water had nowhere to go, or there was no edge holding the surface in. None of that is visible once the tarmac is down, which is exactly why it gets skimped.
We do our own groundworks rather than subcontracting them, so the same firm that lays the surface is the one that prepared the ground for it. If something is wrong there is nobody else to blame, which concentrates the mind.
Excavation and muck away
Digging out to the depth the job needs, and getting the excavated material off site. How deep depends on what is going on top and what the ground is like: soft ground and heavy traffic both mean digging deeper and putting more stone in.
Drainage
Water is what destroys surfaces, so most of a good groundworks job is about deciding where it goes. That might be channel drains across an entrance, gullies in a yard, a soakaway, land drains along a track, or simply getting the falls right so it runs off on its own.
It is also about keeping water away from buildings. Getting a fall wrong by a small amount is how a new drive ends up pushing rain at a doorway.
Kerbs, edgings and haunching
A surface with no edge crumbles away at the sides as soon as anything drives over the edge of it. Concrete kerbs, edging blocks, stone edges or a haunched edge all do the same job: hold the surface in and give it something to be compacted against.
What we are, and what we are not
We are a surfacing contractor that does its own groundworks. That covers excavation, drainage, sub-bases, kerbs, hardstanding and bases for things like oil tanks, bin stores and containers.
We are not a civil engineering firm and we do not pretend to be. If a job needs a structural design, a drainage calculation or a building control sign off, it needs an engineer, and we will tell you that rather than guess.
