The 4 Best Fast and Quick Paving Options for Your Project
If you’re looking to do some paving around your home, choosing a type of pavement is going to be one of your biggest considerations. Whether you’re building a walkway, a garden, a patio, a new driveway, a water feature, or anything else that requires paving, there are plenty of fast and quick paving solutions to get the job done.
4 Great Quick Paving Options
There are many types of pavement but not all of them are fast and quick, so in case you’re looking to minimize cost and effort on your part, here are some of the best quick paving options to use around the home.
1. Loose Gravel
Loose gravel is probably the easiest and most accessible material you can use in a paving project. It’s cheap and very easy to install. There are many different types of gravel you can choose from and a relatively high amount of stylistic versatility.
One of the biggest benefits of using loose gravel in a paving project is the fact that it’s permeable. This means that it allows water to drain through it instead of causing runoff. Permeability is especially useful in projects like driveways and paving near water features as well.
The downside of using loose gravel to pave your projects is that it needs a relatively high amount of maintenance. Gravel spreads easily and it also grinds down into dust. This means you have to consistently add more and rake what spreads back into place. Loose gravel can also develop dust issues, leading to mud and dirtying your vehicles.
2. Cast-in-Place Concrete
This type of concrete is another fast paving option. It’s relatively affordable and easy to install. The installation can usually be completed within a few days. This material is notable for its incredible level of strength.
Cast-in-place concrete is great for projects that need to handle a lot of weight or traffic, like driveways and floors. There are many different colors you can find with this material and it can be stamped and stenciled as well, allowing for stylistic diversity.
For outdoor paving, it does cause runoff because it isn’t permeable. It also requires expensive maintenance, needing to be resealed every 5 years and resurfaced every 10. Concrete is also fragile in cold weather and can easily break in cold temps.
3. Wood Chips
For outdoor projects, wood chips can be an excellent choice. Wood chips are incredibly cheap and you can even make them yourself if you have a wood chipper. Despite seeming like a rather temporary material, you can actually use wood chips to build your driveway if you want to.
There are a handful of different colored wood chips so there is some stylistic flexibility. Some have a fragrance to them that adds a nice pine or cedar smell to the aesthetic. They are incredibly eco-friendly and biodegradable.
Wood chips will simply melt into the earth as they decay and you can pour more on top when they do. They can be compacted to withstand pressure and traffic, and you could even stabilize them with pavers if the chips are small enough. Wood chips are also permeable to varying degrees, depending on chip size.
This is not a very long-lasting material, obviously. You have to constantly add more chips as they decay. You can find chips that are designed not to decay, but they don’t tend to be all that eco-friendly.
4. Permeable Pavers
Permeable plastic pavers can be used to stabilize anything from gravel to wood chips, grass, and more. Pavers like the kind made by TRUEGRID are made from 100% recycled plastic, and provide an incredibly eco-friendly option. Both TRUEGRID PRO LITE and TRUEGRID PRO PLUS are 100% permeable and durable enough to last up to 60 years with almost no maintenance.
This means you can use them to build anything from smaller little paved areas to driveways, patios, garage floors, and more. TRUEGRID ROOT can be used to stabilize grassy areas and make them suitable for vehicle traffic. You simply lay them out and drive on them, and voila, you have a new parking spot!
The installation process for TRUEGRID gravel stabilizing pavers is incredibly fast and easy. It simply requires a basic excavation of about 10 inches. At this point, a piece of fabric is laid at the bottom of the excavated area. Next, the area will be filled with base stone for drainage & detention…compacted until level with the surface.
Then, empty TRUEGRID pavers will be snapped into place over the top as easily as LEGO bricks. Next, more gravel is poured over the top and compacted into the pavers, to anchor them down. This completes installation and the whole process usually takes less than a day.
TRUEGRID is the Best Choice for Your Paving Projects
If you want the best quick paving option out there, you can’t go wrong with TRUEGRID pavers. Their durability, affordability, and easy installation make them the go-to for any quick project.
If you want fast paving that’s permeable, durable, affordable, and looks great, call TRUEGRID today to get in touch with a pavement professional who can get you pointed in the right direction.
Managing stormwater is one of the most important aspects of maintaining a city or town. Cities and towns are generally paved with impermeable materials and this creates a scenario where you have many square acres of impermeable land.
Land that cannot drain its own stormwater naturally needs additional drainage systems implemented to direct the flow of stormwater into underground sewers and local bodies of water like rivers and lakes.
Not properly dealing with stormwater can lead to dire consequences for local bodies of water, nearby animals and wildlife, homes, businesses, and much more. Luckily, there’s a concerted set of strategies in place for dealing with stormwater runoff. The stormwater runoff coefficient is one of the ways that city planners are able to plan for expected amounts of stormwater.
In case you’re looking for information on how to best manage stormwater in a city or town, let’s take a look at why it’s so important and how you can use the stormwater runoff coefficient to effectively manage the stormwater in your area.
Why is it Important to Effectively Manage Stormwater?
Stormwater can have a whole host of dire consequences on a town or city if not managed properly. First, if stormwater is not given the proper channels to travel that it deserves, it can flood through an area and cause massive damage.
This includes flooding and destroying businesses, homes and vehicles, and putting pets and humans alike at risk of injury and death. It can also cause other issues like flooding the drain fields for septic systems, eroding stream channels, and destroying habitats.
Another reason why it’s so important to effectively manage stormwater is that not doing so can lead to pollution in local rivers and lakes. Stormwater that isn’t managed with a runoff coefficient in mind will travel along streets and through parking lots and other paved areas, picking up pollutants along the way and delivering them to any local rivers or bodies of water they may be connected to.
This obviously has an adverse effect on the wildlife within those areas and can make water unsuitable for recreational activity as well. Some of the most common pollutants that we find in local rivers and lakes from stormwater runoff include antifreeze, oil, grease, heavy metals from vehicles, pesticides, garden chemicals, chemicals from businesses and homes, bacteria from failing septic systems, and sediment from construction sites that aren’t using best practices for preventing pollution.
There are also the unforeseen financial consequences on a city or town when polluted stormwater is allowed to consistently enter rivers and lakes. They can include a loss of tourism, destruction of local fishing industries, less recreational opportunity, and an increase in the cost of raw water treatment. Drownings in floods and contaminated drinking water also add to the widespread devastation that can all stem from improperly managed stormwater.
Using a Coefficient Table for Stormwater Runoff Management
A runoff coefficient table takes into account every possible factor that could affect the amount and direction of stormwater runoff in a town or city. This includes the type of pavement within the area, the saturation level of the soil, the slope and grade of the land, proximity to local rivers and lakes, the type of pipings and drainage systems used, the amount of vegetation in the area, annual precedents for headwaters and maximum expected rainfall, and more.
All of these factors are plugged into an equation known as the Manning equation and corresponding calculations are made in order to determine just how much and what type of drainage will be needed in a town or city to effectively manage rainfall. By adhering to a stormwater runoff coefficient table, you can keep detailed track of your stormwater management efforts.
In a city or town with a lot of impermeable pavement, making use of a runoff coefficient table is the only way to generate precise calculations on the amount and type of drainage you’ll need.
Optimizing Your City or Town to Lessen the Burden on Sewers
Using a runoff coefficient table for gravel, asphalt, concrete, and other paving materials is the only way to effectively measure expected stormwater runoff and plan for it accordingly. Such a table can only help you plan for what you’re already working with, though.
If you want to truly lessen the burden on local storm systems in your area and reduce pollution, you need a permeable paving solution. TRUEGRID, for example, offers products like TRUEGRID PRO LITE, TRUEGRID PRO PLUS, and other durable pavement solutions that are also up to 100% permeable.
By implementing permeable plastic pavers from TRUEGRID, you can stabilize gravel and use it to create durable paved areas that will last up to 60 years with almost no maintenance required. They will drain stormwater directly through the pavers and into the soil below, as nature intended.
Not only will this save you money as opposed to high-maintenance materials, these eco-friendly pavers are made from 100% recycled plastic and can act as a double-edged sword when it comes to reducing stormwater pollution in your city or town.
Find the Best Permeable Pavers with TRUEGRID
If you want an eco-friendly paving solution that’s more durable than concrete and will effectively reduce the amount of pollution in your rivers, lakes, and streams, call TRUEGRID to get in touch with a pavement professional who can answer your questions.
The two most popular types of pavement are asphalt and concrete. Both materials are used in parking lots, sidewalks, and other paved areas all over the world, and while regular concrete and asphalt are the most popular choice for pavement, crushed concrete and crushed asphalt are also useful in many cases.
These materials have different pros and cons as opposed to the non-crushed varieties, and you may prefer one over the other depending on your needs and personal preferences. In case you’re thinking about implementing crushed concrete or asphalt as a paving solution, let’s take a look at some of their properties and how they stack up against each other.
What is Crushed Asphalt?
Crushed asphalt is exactly what it sounds like, old asphalt that’s been recycled and crushed into tiny pieces suitable for use in paving and landscaping, among other things. It has many of the same properties as gravel but looks different in color and is also comprised of crushed-up, dried tar as well.
Crushed asphalt is almost always black in appearance though you get specks of yellow or white from parking lot lines, depending on where your asphalt is sourced from. Crushed asphalt, as a paving material, is one of the cheapest options you can find, and it is eco-friendly as well.
Producing asphalt releases a lot of greenhouse gasses, so by using crushed asphalt instead of new, solid asphalt, you are making the more environmentally-friendly choice.
Crushed asphalt also has the benefit of being permeable, meaning it can drain liquids through itself. This is a benefit for people who are worried about flooding or having to reseal their asphalt surfaces every 5 years to prevent water intrusion.
For driveways and pathways, this can help prevent runoff from causing erosion along the sides. For parking lots, it can mitigate or even eliminate the amount of additional drainage you need to add.
Because of this permeability, using crushed asphalt will save you a lot of money on maintenance. Regular asphalt surfaces need to be resealed every 5 years and resurfaced every 10. You’ll also save time and money on having to repaint lot lines if you’re building a parking lot.
What is Crushed Concrete?
Crushed concrete is concrete that has been torn up and pulverized into tiny pieces. It costs around the same as crushed asphalt, though you may be able to find it for a bit less. Crushed concrete has basically all the same properties as crushed asphalt, including permeability.
Crushed concrete is different in color, however. Crushed concrete is generally either gray or white, compared to the black color of crushed asphalt. It is comprised of crushed-up pieces of gravel as well as crushed-up, dried cement.
How to Make the Most of Crushed Asphalt and Concrete
When it comes to the debate of crushed asphalt or crushed concrete, both have essentially the same pros and cons. Your preference is likely going to come down to which look you prefer. The more important thing to consider with these materials, though, is how you implement them.
Unstabilized crushed material like asphalt or concrete comes with maintenance requirements of its own. This material tends to spread and disintegrate easily, so you need to constantly replace it and/or rake it back into place.
Crushed asphalt or concrete that’s been stabilized with pavers is another story. Permeable plastic pavers like the ones made by TRUEGRID are the perfect way to stabilize a crushed asphalt or crushed concrete driveway, a crushed asphalt or concrete parking lot, or any other type of pavement made from crushed material. The empty cells on the surface of these pavers lock the material into place, which also weighs them down and prevents them from moving.
TRUEGRID PRO LITE and TRUEGRID PRO PLUS are both made from 100%-recycled plastic and are durable enough to last 60 years with minimal maintenance. They can also withstand the weight of fully loaded semi trucks…and more without breaking or warping, and that’s without any gravel, asphalt, or concrete fill inside them.
The installation process for these pavers is super quick and easy. First, a simple excavation to a depth of about 10 inches is performed.
The base of 8” of washed angular stone (allows for drainage and detention) is compacted until level with the surface. Next, the pavers are easily snapped into place over the top and then filled with crushed asphalt or crushed concrete. This completes the installation process.
Let TRUEGRID Help You Maximize Your Crushed Asphalt or Concrete Pavement
Whether you’re building a walkway, biking trail, road, driveway, or parking lot with crushed asphalt or concrete, TRUEGRID pavers are the best way to optimize your project.
If you want the best crushed asphalt or concrete option for durability, permeability, affordability, and eco-friendliness without having to perform much maintenance, call TRUEGRID today to get in touch with a pavement specialist.
When it comes to paving materials, gravel is one of the most versatile and commonly used options. Gravel comes in many different forms and can be used for anything from landscaping to building actual roads with a high traffic volume.
When using gravel for pavement intended to handle vehicle and/or foot traffic, certain types of gravel fare better than others. Some people even prefer gravel that hardens like concrete, for maximum durability.
When it comes to this type of gravel, there are a few different types that each have their own pros and cons.
In case you’re in need of a more durable type of gravel, let’s have a look at some types that harden like concrete:
Dense Grade Gravel
Dense grade gravel is made from small stones and crushed stone dust. It’s usually made from crushed limestone, trap rock, granite, or some combination of those three.
When compacted, this is a type of gravel that hardens like concrete and forms a semisolid surface that’s able to stand up to the rigors of vehicle and foot traffic. This type of gravel is considered practical and functional, but not exactly aesthetically pleasing.
It should also be mentioned that dense grade gravel is not very permeable due to the nature of its composition and should be avoided in wet climates.
Decomposed Granite
Decomposed granite is a type of gravel made from 100% pulverized granite. This type of gravel is ground into fine particles and will pack together to form a gravel that hardens like concrete when compacted.
Decomposed granite has suitable drainage properties for hardscaping, however, it’s not capable of draining water fast enough during high-volume rainfall. This is because the particles are too fine and don’t give enough space for water to drain through at a quick rate.
There are also two types of decomposed granite surfaces, stabilized and unstabilized. Unstabilized granite is granite that has just been packed down with no added stabilizers like chemical hardener or pavers. This is the cheapest option but completely untenable for paved surfaces expecting traffic, due to the rapid misplacement and deterioration of the granite.
Stabilized decomposed granite will last much longer and can achieve higher levels of permeability with the right type of pavers. Chemical hardeners like GraniteCrete can be added to this type of gravel to make it even sturdier and lessen maintenance requirements. This type of additive will typically reduce the permeability to almost zero, however.
Hard Pack Gravel
Hard pack gravel is comprised of multiple types of gravel. The base is usually made up of pea stone gravel, with finer types of gravel layered over the top.
Hard pack gravel provides excellent drainage because its base layer provides more room for water to drain through. The upper layers provide superior traction and stability as well, especially when stabilized.
Unstabilized hard pack gravel suffers the same downsides as every other type of unstabilized gravel, namely an extensive amount of maintenance. With stabilizing pavers, however, hardpack gravel is actually the most durable type of gravel that hardens like concrete.
By utilizing TRUEGRID permeable plastic pavers, you can achieve 100% permeability as well, making hard pack gravel the optimal choice if you’re looking for top performance in all the relevant areas like durability, maintenance, etc.
TRUEGRID Pavers Can Make Gravel Last Longer Than Concrete
The main downside to using gravel as a paving material is that it’s cheap and breaks down easily. Gravel spreads and disintegrates in no time, requiring you to constantly replace it and rake it back into place.
By implementing a gravel-stabilizing solution like permeable plastic pavers from TRUEGRID, you can lock your gravel into place and prevent it from spreading or breaking down. TRUEGRID PRO LITE and PRO PLUS pavers are compatible with almost every type of gravel, and not having to worry about durability opens up your options.
Limestone, granite, peastone, trap rock, and many other common types of gravel are perfectly compatible with TRUEGRID pavers. This means not only will you be able to reap the benefits of increased durability and permeability, you’ll also have complete stylistic versatility.
The installation process for these pavers is incredibly fast and can be completed in a fraction of the time of most other paving materials. Once installed, your pavers will last up to 60 years without needing to be replaced. They require almost zero maintenance and are resistant to all deteriorating factors.
Find the Perfect Concrete-like Solution with Stabilizing Gravel Permeable Pavers from TRUEGRID
Made from 100%-recycled plastic, TRUEGRID pavers are one of the most eco-friendly paving materials on the planet that can be used to install gravel that hardens like concrete.
If you want to create a hard, level-paved surface that outperforms concrete in every way, don’t hesitate to call TRUEGRID today and get in touch with a pavement professional who can get you pointed in the right direction.
