What the work is
A driveway carries loads a patio never sees, so the base is deeper, the compaction matters more, and the paver itself has to be rated for vehicles. A patio specification under a driveway will rut where the wheels track.
Access, the approach at the street, and where water goes at the garage door are the three details that decide whether it works.
What is included
- Excavation to vehicular base depth
- Compacted aggregate base placed in lifts
- Vehicle-rated pavers, laid to a pattern suited to the load
- Edge restraint
- Fall away from the garage
- Photographs of every stage
What is not
- Work in the public right of way or the approach, which needs the city and is quoted separately
- Sealing
- Removing an existing concrete driveway, unless quoted in
- Drainage structures beyond surface fall
What is under it
Sewer laterals and water services frequently run under driveways here, and cutting a new driveway is the moment to find out where yours is. A camera run and a locate before you pour or lay is cheap.
If the lateral is old, replacing it before the driveway goes down costs a fraction of doing it afterwards.
A driveway is the one surface that carries weight
A patio holds furniture and a walkway holds people. A driveway holds a vehicle, repeatedly, in the same wheel paths. Everything about the build below the pavers is sized for that, and on weak or expansive subgrade it gets thicker rather than thinner.
We will not print a base depth on a web page. It depends on what is actually under your driveway, and anybody quoting you a number before they have looked is quoting a number they got from somewhere else.
The failure is usually water, not weight
Expansive soils are 42.87% of Utah's classified problem soils, and the state's own hazard plan blames asphalt and concrete pavement failure on them. Collapsible soil does the opposite and settles when it gets wet.
In both cases the thing that moves the ground is water arriving somewhere it was not meant to — a downspout at the edge, an irrigation line, a leak. Which is why drainage away from the surface is part of the job and not an upsell.
What to ask anyone quoting this, us included
- What base depth, and is it specified for vehicles?
- What is buried under this driveway?
- Does any of this touch the city's right of way?