Driveway Paver
How to find and choose the best driveway paver for your home.
There’s nothing more annoying in home ownership than coming home to a driveway that is in bad shape. With the cold winter months and the normal wear and tear that your driveway goes through day in and day out, it’s natural for the paving to get bad. The thing is, your driveway tends to set the tone for every arrival you have coming home. If it’s in bad shape, or there are potholes, or uneven patches, it can be frustrating.
With this being the case, it’s really important to take the time to find the best driveway paver for your home. Sadly, in all of the construction trades that go into building, maintaining, or renovating your home driveway paving has one of the biggest reputations for poor quality workmanship.
So, to avoid hiring a driveway paver that advertises good work but delivers poorly, or even getting straight-up ripped off, there are some things to be aware of and looking for before you hire a paver for your home. We took some time to ask some of our most highly rated and experienced driveway pavers here on ClickATrades, what are the things you should be taking into consideration and aware of before you hire someone for paving work on your home:
- Experience matters sometimes more than accreditations.
- Find out the approach they take to your job.
- Get multiple quotes and be certain they are detailed.
- Be certain that they will be coming out for follow ups after the job is completed.
If you’re keeping these points in mind when you’re meeting with potential driveway pavers, you will be off to a good start to finding the best driveway paver for your home.
Experience matters sometimes more than accreditations.
When it comes to driveway paving, the tradesmen that you’re considering for the job may also have experience in other areas such as bricklaying, ground-working, landscape gardening and other general types of building. This is because driveway paving can sometime fall under all of those different areas of construction around your home. While a general contractor may be able to actually do the driveway paving for your home, you will still want to take the time to find an actual driveway paving specialist to do the work you need for your home.
There are tradesmen you can find on our ClickATrades site that only do driveway paving work, and that do it exceptionally well. When you’re considering which tradesman to hire, you want to take the time to research their customer reviews as well as potentially even see some of their previous work up close and personal for yourself.
While some potential tradesmen you’re considering may belong to some professional organisations, it does not mean that their work holds up to the standards you’re looking for. Be sure to review their customer feedback and their portfolio of previous work before hiring.
Find out how they will approach your paving job.
You want to know that the tradesman you’re hiring is able to carry out the job you’re asking of them. It’s important to have some questions ready to ask them during the quote process that will help you determine their ability to complete the job in the highest quality.
- What materials will they be using in the sub-base?
- How will they handle the drainage?
- To what depth will they be going?
- Do they think they will encounter any water or gas pipes or other such hidden issues?
- Do they know if there are planning constraints?
These are just a few of the questions you can ask potential tradesmen.
Get multiple, detailed quotes for your job.
As always, ClickATrades recommends that you get a minimum of three detailed quotes for any job around your home. This is especially true for driveway paving work. Be certain that all the materials needed are covered in the quotes and that each of them doesn’t have any hidden costs. Once you have all the quotes, you can line them up side by side and compare them to figure out where one might be coming in cheaper than the others and why. Are they subcontracting out any of the work for your job? Look for abnormalities within the quotes before you hire a tradesman.
Be certain they will be following up after the work is completed.
With something like driveway paving work, the actual effects and impact of the work done takes time to settle in. It will take a few weeks for the paving to settle into place, for potential problems to show up. Sometime it can even take months. So, it is smart to confirm with the driveway paver you hire that they will be coming back out to your property a couple weeks after the job is completed to do a thorough follow up with you.
These are just a few of the things that you should be looking for when meeting with potential tradesmen. You can find more on our ClickATrades site as well, along with listings of some of the best driveway pavers in the business.