Block Paved Driveway Cleaning in
Maidenhead, Berkshire

A herringbone block-paved driveway that had disappeared beneath grass and weeds, cleared, deep cleaned, re-jointed with polymeric sand, compacted and protected.

The project at a glance

Grass through every joint,
and a driveway underneath it

Clearing the Growth by Hand

Before any water touched the driveway, Chiltern Surface Co technicians cleared the grass and weeds by hand.

Pulling the growth out by the root first means far less organic material is driven back into the joints during cleaning, and it shows us the true condition of the paving underneath.

It is slow, careful work, but on a driveway this overgrown it is the only right place to start.

Taking the Joints Back

With the bulk of the growth removed, we worked across the driveway with a lance, stripping the remaining roots, soil and degraded jointing sand out of the joints.

Taking the joints right back is what makes the rest of the restoration possible. New polymeric sand can only bond properly into clean, open joints, and anything left behind becomes the starting point for the next generation of weeds.

Deep Cleaning the Block Paving

Chiltern EverGuard™, Applied While the Joints Were Open

Once the paving was clean, the whole driveway was treated with Chiltern EverGuard™, our proprietary biocide surface protection system, while the joints were still open.

Biological growth lives within the surface and in the joints, not just on top of it, so surface cleaning is not enough.

Applied to clean, open paving, Chiltern EverGuard™ penetrates deep into the pores of the blocks and the jointing bed, kills the growth living inside them and leaves a barrier that inhibits regrowth.

The driveway was then left to dry out completely before the jointing stage.

Re-Sanding with Polymeric Sand

Polymeric sand cannot be worked into damp joints and will not set correctly on a wet surface, so this stage is governed by the weather rather than the schedule. We returned six days later, once the driveway had dried right through.

Fresh polymeric sand was then swept across the paving and worked into every joint.

Once activated, its binding agents harden to form firm but flexible joints that resist washout, discourage weeds and ants, and hold the blocks together far better than ordinary kiln-dried sand.

Compaction and a Second Sanding

The driveway was then mechanically compacted with a plate compactor, settling the sand down into the joints and the blocks firmly into their bed.

A second application of polymeric sand was then swept in to fill every joint to the top, before the sand was activated.

The sand between the blocks on a block-paved surface is responsible for its stabilisation. That stabilisation is compromised if re-compaction and a second re-sanding are not undertaken.

Mechanical compaction and a second sanding are part of every block-paved driveway restoration undertaken by Chiltern Surface Co.

From overgrown to finished,
one surface again

Block Paved Driveway Cleaning in
Maidenhead, Berkshire