Driveway Excavation in Auckland

Before a driveway is a driveway it is a hole. How deep that hole goes, what comes out of it and what goes back in decides whether the finished surface is still flat in ten years, and it is the one part of the job that nobody can see on the day it is handed over.

Pavecraft does its own excavation. We run our own trucks, bobcats, diggers and excavators, so the dig, the cart away, the base course and then the paving or concrete are one crew and one responsibility. That matters most when something unexpected comes out of the ground, because there is nobody to hand it to and no second mobilisation to pay for. We have been doing this across Auckland for over 20 years, for homeowners, builders, developers and main contractors.

What a driveway excavation actually involves

• Set out and levels - where the driveway sits, what grade it runs at and which way the water goes. Fall away from the house and the garage gets settled before anything is dug, not discovered afterwards.
• Strip and dig - topsoil and any unsuitable material out to the depth that the surface and the traffic require. A driveway that has to carry a trailer, a truck or a concrete pump is a different depth from a garden path.
• Cart away and disposal - our own trucks, so the spoil leaves as the dig proceeds rather than sitting on the lawn waiting for somebody else to collect it.
• Subgrade check and undercut - soft spots get dug out further and replaced rather than bridged over. This is the step that gets skipped, and it is the step that causes the dip you notice two winters later.
• Geotextile and base course - separation fabric where the subgrade is wet or fine, then basecourse placed and compacted in layers to the right depth, rather than tipped in one lift and rolled once.
• Drainage and edge restraint - channel drains, cesspit connections, soakage and edging, so the base stays dry and the surface has something holding it in. See kerbing and drainage.

Auckland clay, and why the dig goes deeper than people expect

Much of Auckland sits on clay that shrinks through summer and swells through winter, and West and North West Auckland are the worst of it. Clay also holds water, so a base course laid straight onto it with nothing in between slowly loses its stone down into the subgrade and stops working as a base at all. The usual answers are more depth, a separation fabric and somewhere for the water to go. None of them cost much at the excavation stage and all of them cost a great deal later, because by then there is a driveway sitting on top.

This is also why a quote that looks cheap is worth reading closely. When two prices for the same driveway are a long way apart, the difference is usually in the dig rather than in the surface.

Rural and lifestyle driveways north of Auckland

A long rural driveway is a different job from a suburban one. There is grade to manage, culverts and crossings, a vehicle entrance onto a road that may need council approval, and hundreds of metres of metal to place and compact rather than a dozen square metres. Water is the whole problem: a rural drive that does not shed water will scour into ruts in its first wet winter no matter how well it was metalled.

We work from Whangarei to Karaka, which covers the lifestyle country north of the city - Warkworth, Matakana, Snells Beach, Kaipara Flats, Puhoi and Wellsford - as well as the North Shore and West Auckland. We can metal and finish a driveway, or excavate and prepare it for concrete, exposed aggregate or permeable paving.

Commercial and civil excavation

The same crews and machines handle car park and hardstand excavation, subdivision and roading base, and the base preparation under commercial paving and concrete. Where traffic management is needed we arrange it through our own network of insourced skills and equipment. For the wider commercial scope see siteworks, subdivisions and developers and for main contractors.

Excavation is normally part of a larger job

Very few people actually want an excavation. They want a driveway, a courtyard, a car park or a level building platform, and the excavation is what has to happen first. That is how we price it and how we sequence it, and it is why the dig and the finished surface come from the same company. If you already have a contractor lined up for the surface we are happy to do the excavation on its own, and if you would rather hand the whole thing over we will do that too.