Exposed Aggregate Driveways Auckland
Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
Concrete is the one part of a landscape you cannot fix later. A slab poured on a poor base, or with the falls running the wrong way, has to come out — and taking concrete out costs more than putting it in.
What makes a slab last
Four things, none of them visible once the job is done.
• 665 mesh sat up on chairs, so the steel sits inside the slab rather than on the ground beneath it.
• Falls set deliberately, so water goes where you want it instead of towards the house.
• A prepared, compacted base — most cracked driveways in Auckland are a base problem, not a concrete problem.
• A trowelled finish worked at the right moment, which is what stops a surface crazing a year later.
Finishes
Exposed aggregate is the most common choice for an Auckland driveway — grippy underfoot, forgiving of dirt, and tuneable a long way by the stone and the oxide. Point Chevalier is 19 mm Mangatangi with 3 kg of black oxide, giving a dark charcoal ground with pale stone through it.
Plain concrete, brushed or trowelled, where you want the surface quiet.
Decorative pebble and paving — Uruti borders, cut stone and paving to break up a large area.
Porcelain tile on the Silca System over an existing surface.
Water is the whole job
A driveway is a large, impermeable surface, and everything that lands on it has to go somewhere.
We set falls to move water away from the house, and install stainless channel drain where the levels leave it nowhere else to go.
Before we set out, we locate the existing stormwater runs and keep the excavation a metre clear of them. Disturbing a stormwater line means an engineered solution and, often, a consent that was never in anybody’s budget for the job.
The rest of the front yard
A driveway is rarely the only thing that needs doing, and sequencing three trades around one pour is how front yards end up taking a season.
We take the whole thing on in one go — retaining, fencing, planters, screens and planting — so there is one crew, one programme and one point of contact.
Point Chevalier was the driveway plus a custom horizontal timber screen, Uruti pebble borders and existing retaining refurbished in Resene premium paint.
Consents and compliance
We manage the engineering and the council consents ourselves.
Most driveways and paths need no consent, but some do — a new or widened vehicle crossing, work that changes drainage, or a slab against a boundary or a retaining structure. We work out which applies before quoting, so it is priced in rather than discovered halfway through.
If engineering is needed, we arrange it and build to the drawings.
Where we work
Auckland-wide. Recent concrete and driveway work in Point Chevalier and Torbay, with wider landscape projects across Herne Bay, One Tree Hill, Meadowbank and Titirangi.
Common questions
How long before I can drive on it?
Foot traffic in a few days, vehicles after about a week, depending on the pour and the weather. We will give you exact dates on the job.
Why do driveways crack?
Usually the base, sometimes the reinforcement, occasionally the finish. Hairline shrinkage cracks are normal in any slab; structural cracking is not, and it is nearly always preventable at the preparation stage.
Can you match an existing driveway?
Close, rarely exact. Concrete cures differently batch to batch and weathers over time. We will show you samples and be straight about the likely difference.
Do you do the drainage too?
Yes. Falls, channel drain and connections are part of the job, not a separate trade you have to organise.