Project guide
Laying an interlock driveway
The base is the job. The pavers are the part everyone photographs, and they are two of the seven days — get the eight inches under them right and the driveway outlives the house.
TYPICAL 600 SQ FT · 7 DAYS · BASE 22–28 T · SPOIL 26 YD³
The sequence
How the job actually runs
In order, with the tool each stage needs. Skip a stage and it comes back as the stage after it.
- 01
Locates
Call before you buy anything. Five business days, free, and the dig-out depth on a driveway is exactly where the gas line lives.
- 02
Lay it out and order the stone
String the edges, work out the square footage, then order base and pavers. The pit's delivery date sets your start date.
- 03
Dig out
Base depth plus an inch of sand plus the paver — about eleven or twelve inches on a driveway. Machine work: bucket, haul, stack the spoil where the bin will go.
- 04
Geotextile
Over clay, roll it before a stone goes down. It costs an afternoon and it stops the base from disappearing into the subgrade.
- 05
Base, in lifts
Three to four inches at a time, wet it, four passes with the plate, then the next lift. Eight inches is two lifts. It is never one.
- 06
Screed the bedding
One inch of concrete sand, screeded off rails, and then nobody walks on it. Sand is not a levelling compound.
- 07
Lay the field
Off a string line, from a straight edge, working forward off the laid pavers. This is the slow part and the crew size decides it.
- 08
Cut the edges
Saw the perimeter and the apron last, wet, with the field already down. Cutting to a chalk line beats cutting each stone to a gap.
- 09
Edge restraint, sand, compact
Restraint and spikes around the whole perimeter, polymeric sand swept in dry, plate over the pad, then water it in.
How big, how long
The three sizes people ask for.
Day counts are for one or two people working at a homeowner’s pace, not a crew’s. Book the longer number.
Typical jobs
| Single car pad | 350 sq ft | 5 days |
|---|---|---|
| Two-car driveway | 600 sq ft | 7 days |
| Double plus apron | 1,000 sq ft | 12 days |
Tools this job uses
- Toolcat
- Plate compactor — ask us
- Cut-off saw — ask us
- Vacuum lifter — ask us
Anything marked “ask us” is a machine in the yard that is not on the rate card yet. Send the request with your dates and we will tell you what it costs before you commit to anything.
The planner
Your numbers, not an average
Tell it the size and it works out the material, the days and which machines you actually need — including the ones you do not.
Tell it about the job
Square feet. Length times width, near enough.
This is what decides the lifter, and usually it decides against it.
What that takes
600 sq ft interlock driveway · 8 in base · two of you
- SURFACE
- 600 sq ft
- BASE
- 22–28 t
- SPOIL
- 26 yd³
- BEDDING
- 3 t
- SURFACE ORDER
- 600 sq ft + 10%
- COMPACTOR
- 2 days
- SAW
- 0.5 day · 1 blade
- LIFTER
- not needed
- BOOK
- 7 days
8 in of base. Anything a vehicle parks on. Eight inches over decent ground, ten to twelve over clay.
14.8 yd³ in the ground. Order the top of that range — what you order over what the hole measures — compaction, spillage and over-dig.
11.4 in of dig. Soil bulks when it is dug. The pile is always bigger than the hole. You will want a bin.
1 in screeded concrete sand. Screeded bedding sand. Thicker sand does not fix a low base — it becomes the low spot.
Extra pavers for cuts and breakage. Five per cent on a plain rectangle, ten with curves.
2 lifts of 4 in. Maximum depth of one compaction lift. An eight-inch base is two lifts, not one pass.
About 60 lineal ft of cuts. Per 14-inch general-purpose segmented blade, cutting concrete pavers. Clay brick, granite and rebar cut this down hard.
About 7 lb a piece. You do not need the lifter for these.
Dig 2 · base 2 · lay 5 · cuts 0.5, less the overlap between them. Laying at 140 sq ft a day, two of you.
Estimates from average jobs — ground, grade and weather vary. When in doubt, book the extra day: it is cheaper than a second delivery. And order your stone before you book the machines.
The tools, and the ones you can skip
| Tool | Verdict | Days |
|---|---|---|
| Toolcat22 tonnes in and 26 yards out. That is the whole reason to have one on site. | Needed | 4 |
| Plate compactor2 lifts, four passes each. Compaction is never the bottleneck — spreading is.Not on the rate card yet — ask us and we will tell you what it costs and whether it is free. | Needed | 2 |
| Cut-off sawAbout 60 lineal ft of cuts, 1 blade. Cut wet.Not on the rate card yet — ask us and we will tell you what it costs and whether it is free. | Needed | 0.5 |
| Vacuum lifterAbout 7 lb a piece. You do not need the lifter for these. | Not needed | — |
From experience
What people get wrong
Not enough base, and no fabric over clay.
Eight inches minimum where a vehicle parks, ten to twelve over clay, geotextile underneath.
Compacting eight inches in one pass.
Three to four inches a lift, four passes each. The plate only compacts what it can reach.
Screeding the sand thick to fix a low spot.
Fix the low spot in the base. Thick sand becomes the low spot by August.
No edge restraint, because the field looked tight.
Restraint and spikes all the way around. Without it the perimeter creeps and the joints open.
Ordering pavers with no cut allowance.
Add five per cent on a plain rectangle, ten with curves or a herringbone.
Sweeping polymeric sand in damp.
Dry pavers, dry sand, blow the surface clean, then water. Damp sand hazes the faces permanently.
Before you dig
The parts that are not optional
One sentence and one link each. We rent machines — we do not read by-laws for you, and none of this is legal or engineering advice.
Book your locates first. Free, and it is the law.
Ontario One Call is free, and a locate is legally required before you dig. Submit the request at least five business days before you plan to start — infrastructure owners have five business days for a single address, and there is no guarantee they use fewer. Book it the day you decide to do the job, not the day the machine lands.
Ontario One Call — locate requests for homeownersCut wet, or split instead of sawing.
Cutting concrete pavers dry throws respirable crystalline silica, which Ontario regulates under O. Reg. 833. The control is water suppression or a process that makes less dust — splitting rather than sawing is explicitly the safer route. A paper dust mask is not respiratory protection.
Government of Ontario — silica on construction projects: legal requirements (O. Reg. 833)A protective pad before the plate touches finished pavers.
Running a plate compactor straight onto a laid surface chips corners and cracks faces, and on large-format slabs it does it on the first pass. Use the roller pad or the rubber mat, every time. On slabs over about 18 inches, do not run the plate at all.
Ask your supplier what the pallet weighs.
Bobcat publishes a loader rated operating capacity of 1,500 lb for the 5600. A full pallet of pavers commonly runs 1,200 to 2,000 lb and sometimes more, so the honest sentence is that the machine moves most pavement pallets and not that it moves any of them. Get the number from the yard that sells you the stone.
Bobcat — Toolcat 5600 published specifications
Be clear about this
What we do not supply
The machines move material around your site. They do not haul it to the curb and they do not bring it in. Sort this out before you book anything.
- Aggregate deliveryGranular A and concrete sand come from a pit, by the tandem load. We rent the machine that spreads it, not the truck that brings it.
- Spoil removalA bin, or a dump trailer from somebody who has one. The Toolcat moves the pile around your site; it does not take it away.
- Pavers, slabs and blockFrom your supplier, with the cut allowance added.
- GeotextileOver clay, it is the difference between a base that lasts and one that pumps mud into itself.
- Edge restraint and spikesWithout it the field creeps and the first spring shows you where.
- Polymeric sandAnd the patience to sweep it in dry.
- Hand toolsScreed rails, string line, level, rubber mallet, knee pads. Bring your own.
Questions
The ones we get asked
How deep does the base need to be for a driveway?
Eight inches of compacted granular A is the working minimum where a vehicle parks, and ten to twelve inches over clay. Walkways and patios are lighter — four to six inches. Simcoe County freeze-thaw is why the honest number here is at the top of the published range.
How much gravel does a 600 sq ft driveway take?
About fifteen cubic yards in the ground at eight inches, which is roughly twenty-two tonnes — and you order closer to twenty-eight, because compaction, spillage and over-dig all take a share. That is two tandem loads. The planner on this page does the arithmetic for your size.
Do I need a vacuum lifter for a driveway?
Almost never. A 4 × 8 Holland paver weighs about five pounds. The lifter earns its place on large-format slabs, caps, steps and armour stone — over about fifty-five pounds a piece. If your border or soldier course is large format, that is the one part of a driveway where it helps.
How many days should I book the machines for?
Seven days for a typical two-car driveway with two people working. Four to five for a single pad, ten to fourteen for a double with an apron. Booking the extra day is cheaper than a second delivery.
Can I do this without a machine?
You can, and about twenty-eight tonnes of base is roughly three hundred wheelbarrow loads before you count the spoil coming out. If there is no vehicle access to the work, tell the planner and it will say so plainly instead of selling you a Toolcat that cannot get in.
Showing our work
Where these numbers come from.
Anything marked [VERIFY] is trade convention we have not yet put in front of a supplier. It is good enough to plan against and we would rather say so than dress it up.
- [VERIFY] Trade convention — not yet confirmed against a supplier or a published standard
- Normal-weight concrete, about 2,400 kg per cubic metre — the standard value
- Ontario One Call — locate requests for homeowners
- Government of Ontario — silica on construction projects: legal requirements (O. Reg. 833)
- Bobcat — Toolcat 5600 published specifications
Next
Related guides, and where we work
Building a patio, including large-format slabs
A patio is the job where the format decides everything. Small pavers are a laying job; twenty-four inch slabs are a lifting job, and the two are planned differently from the first load of stone. Read the guide
Laying a walkway or garden path
A path is a small driveway with the same rules and none of the tonnage. The one thing people skip is compaction, on the theory that nobody drives on it — and then it settles anyway, because frost does not care what you drive. Read the guide
Renting in Barrie
Inside the flat-rate delivery core — one trip covers drop-off and pickup. Equipment in Barrie
Renting in Innisfil
Inside the flat-rate delivery core — one trip covers drop-off and pickup. Equipment in Innisfil
Tell us the dates. We will confirm by text.
Pick the machines, send the request, and we will handle the hauling.
kempenfeltrental@gmail.com · 7am–7pm, 7 days