The Root Heave Ruin: Protecting Your Driveway from That Massive Oak
Massive tree roots will push up and completely destroy a standard driveway. Learn why we use GeoCell confinement grids to protect the roots and keep your new drive dead flat.
The Root Heave Ruin: Paving Under Massive Trees
Loads of big houses around Bournemouth and Poole have massive oak or pine trees out front. Everyone wants to park under them to use the space. But tree roots are ridiculously strong, and they will completely ruin a cheap drive.
If you let someone come in and just dig a massive trench through the roots to throw down standard hardcore, two things happen. First, you end up suffocating and killing the tree. Second, the surviving roots fight back. They push straight up looking for air and water. Give it twelve months and those roots will literally punch through the tarmac, leaving the whole surface wrecked.
You can't just bury them in hardcore and ignore them.
When we do a drive near a big protected tree, we don't do a deep dig. We level it off carefully and lay down a cellular confinement system. It basically looks like a heavy-duty plastic honeycomb, usually called a GeoCell grid.
We roll this grid out and fill the pockets with clean angular stone. What it does is spread the weight of your car right across the surface, so the tyres aren't crushing the roots down below. And because we use clean stone instead of fine, dusty hardcore, rain and air can still wash straight through the drive to feed the tree.
The tree gets what it needs, so the roots don't have to rip up your driveway looking for a drink. The surface stays exactly where we put it.
Don'tlet anyone pour a drive over a heavy root system unless you want to be paying for a new one next year.
Stop by the office at 78 Alma Rd, Bournemouth BH9 1AN, UK, or call 07835 390845.
