Before they could start putting in our new driveway they had to prepare the site.

The first step for this was to cut away the old driveway and remove it. Because of the height difference between the old driveway and the garage they only cut away the first half of the drive.

As you can see in the photo on the left they made followed a very systematic approach to cutting up the old concrete. They made pretty quick work of it too using the concrete saw.

It became clear why they were so precise with the cutting up of the driveway when the bobcat arrived the next day. It probably only took the bobcat about 15-minutes to remove the concrete driveway pieced and drop them into the skip that was delivered.

They then used the bobcat to flatten the area down a bit before dumping a few cubic metres of gravel roadbase / crackadust down and levelling it off. This will provide the base that the concrete will be poured onto when that gets delivered tomorrow.

We are getting a new aggregate driveway put in when we replace our existing driveway. As we looked at what to do with our driveway, how much of it to replace and what sort of driveway we were going to get put in cost obviously played a part in making our decision.

To get our new aggregated driveway installed over our existing driveway, including removing portions of our existing driveway and preparing the site, will cost about $85.00 per square metre.

My wife was always been a big fan of the aggregated driveway, and the cost difference between it and a regular driveway is negligible. Here in Townsville it seems to be the most popular type of driveway to put in with new homes being built in the older areas, or in the new areas.

I have heard aggregated driveways also called "pebblecrete", because it looks like pebbles on top of concrete.

Up until now our garage has been virtually inaccessible because of the original old driveway. The original driveway is about 20cm (8 inches) below the garage entrance, which is rather difficult to navigate.

I had already tried to build a ramp out of timber, but that didn’t work very well as it had a very steep angle and moved around a lot. That left us with three options to get into our garage from our driveway:

• Build a permanent concrete ramp from the existing driveway into the garage.
• Replace the entire driveway with a new driveway.
• Replace a portion of the driveway.

After looking at those three options we have decided to replace a portion of the driveway.

The portion that we have decided to replace is a large portion of the original driveway. We will be replacing all of the driveway inside of our property line. We probably would have looked at replacing the entire driveway with a new one, but that would have slowed us down a lot.

If we were to replace the driveway from the curb to the front of our property line it would have cost an extra $3000 or so. We would have also had to submitted plans to council, which would have most likely taken months to be approved.

In our area of West End in Townsville there has been significant road works this year. Most of the road works have been focused on improving the drainage in the area, and has included replacing the gutters. Our builder reckons that our road will have the gutters replaced in the next few years.

When the council replaces the gutters on the street they usually also replace the first metre or so of any driveways affected. When that happens we can always revisit the idea of replacing that final section that will be left of the original driveway.

To clean up all the rubbish that the builders have created while working under the house they ordered a 6 tonne rubbish skip to take all the construction waste away. They filled up about half the skip, leaving the other half free for me to fill with all of our left over construction waste from previous work.

Our backyard garden has been so full of rubbish due to the construction that we haven’t felt safe sending the kids out there alone. The builder who put up the front stairs left all of his rubbish behind after a rather unsatisfactory experience with him. The half empty skip will finally let me dispose of all that leftover waste.

The largest piece that you can see in the photo is the landing from the original set of front stairs. My original plan was to use the old landing as a cubby house / stage for the kids in the backyard. It could have been a lot of fun for them, but with everything else going on I was probably never going to get around to building it for them. Like the deck, it was better to get rid of it than leaving it hanging around causing stress, taking up room and reminding me of one more project that I never managed to finish.

Now with the back garden bed finally cleared out I can move the swing set out of the middle of the yard and back into the garden bed, where it used to reside. That will clear up the middle of the yard for more backyard cricket and football, which Caleb will certainly enjoy.

The pavers that you see on the right of the photo above are destined to be our patio out the back door of the ground floor on the house. That is pretty much the only thing left in our rear garden bed.

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