Driveway maintenance and repairs
Part of our driveways guides
Block paving is repairable, which is its main advantage over a poured surface. A sunken area can be lifted, the base corrected and the same blocks relaid, so a fault does not have to mean a new driveway.
Routine maintenance
Most driveways need very little: sweeping, keeping the joints full, and dealing with weeds before they seed.
- Top up kiln-dried sand or jointing compound once the joints drop below the block chamfer
- Pressure wash at an angle and at moderate pressure — blasting straight down strips the joints out
- Always resand after washing, on a dry day
- Treat moss and weeds early; they germinate in the joint sand, not from below when the joints are full
- Keep gullies, channel drains and soakaway inlets clear of leaves and silt
What sinking and rutting are telling you
A dip in the wheel tracks is a compaction or depth problem in the sub-base. A dip in one localised spot is often a trench that was backfilled loosely over a service, or a soft patch that was never dug out. Blocks tipping outwards at an open edge means the edge restraint has failed or was never haunched.
None of these are surface faults, so relaying the same blocks on the same base fixes nothing. The base has to be opened up and rebuilt in that area.
Repair or replace
A localised repair makes sense when the rest of the driveway sits true, drains properly and the blocks are still available or can be lifted from a discreet area. Replacement makes more sense when the whole drive is moving, the level is wrong against the house, or the surface was laid on a base that was never adequate.
Colour matching is the practical limit on repairs. Weathered paving rarely matches new stock exactly, so we often lift blocks from a low-visibility area for the repair and use the new blocks there instead.
Frequently asked
Why do weeds keep coming back in my block paving?
Seeds land in the joints and germinate in the sand. Full, well-compacted joints give them very little to root into, so resanding is usually more effective long term than repeatedly spraying an empty joint.
Can oil stains be removed from block paving?
Fresh spills often lift with a dedicated masonry degreaser and a stiff brush. Old, soaked-in oil rarely comes out completely, but individual blocks can be lifted and swapped, which is one of the practical advantages of block paving.