questions about cobblestone driveway

[Hotrod Addiction]

My wife and I are buying a house and we looked at one today that had a gravel/dirt driveway. We really liked the house and may be putting an offer in on it. If we do get it I want to replace the dirt with a old style cobblestone driveway. I searched the forum and couldn't find much on the subject. So has anyone on here done this? How did you go about it, what was the approx size and cost if you're comfortable sharing that. It'd be super cool if I could use antique, reclaimed cobblestones but I'm not sure if I could find any locally. Thanks everyone.

 

[humanbeingexpert]

We graded and then put down some sand as a base, then spread larger gravel w more sand on top...compacted it. It takes quite awhile to spread the sand evenly with a very stiff broom, plus shoveling up all the loose rock. Rain helps get it settled some. Seems like it will take 2-3 years to look just right. Very strong though, cement trucks didnt dent it. After a while the driveway takes on that cobblestone appearence. Good news is no dust when someone drives up. Be careful not to use too much sand. GL

 

[TonkaJoe]

^ All very good points listed above, The base of a cobblestone driveway is absolutely key in order to avoid any sinking, shifting etc. The proper compaction of sand and screenings are the number one thing to remember. Some installations ( size pending) even add some sections of steel bar laid into the sand and screenings parallel with the driveway a few feet in from the outside edges where a vehicle would track and in the center, then compacted. This helps to avoid sinking and shifting of the stones while they settle and adds re enforcement to heavily travelled areas. A big bonus of this driveway is that if you crack or ruin a stone, find that an area is sinking etc, it's a simple case of removing the stone(s), add some sand or screenings and replace the stones.!

 

[Lippyp]

It is very labour intensive to lay, we have an old rough cobbled driveway around this house thats seen better days and the thought of lifting parts of it to remove dips etc is giving me nightmares as its all random pebbles. On the other hand it is very durable if done properly. Are you talking about using rounded river rocks or proper square cut sets? Setts are more expensive but easier to lay neatly as they are all the same size and give a smoother finish to drive on. Often they were pointed between with liquid tar to give a waterproof surface. They used to just dribble boiling hot tar out of an old tin watering can.

We actually found a cobbled surface at our old house that belonged to a much older house that had been demolished in the 1960's, the cobbles were just buried under accumulated layers of grass and soil. You can see the surface in these pictures, we discovered them when we had a guy in with a backhoe doing some landscaping (we removed 140 tons of soil and also found an old stone staircase that went up to a higher level of land. I spent a day or two with a cement trowel cleaning out between the stones. These are probably a couple of hundred years old and were sandstone setts from a local quarry. Where the truck is we found the floor of an old stable that had massive 4" thick stone flags and the other half was stone stable blocks with a central stone cut drain.

 

[BRIANBB]

Or you could go with stamped concrete driveway. All kinds of designs and colors available.
Or go over to Germany along the Rhine(or anywhere in Europe I assume). All the little towns are paved with cobbles. Looks really nice. You could hang around the road crew and vacation at the same time