ᐅ Paving stones have settled after one year (carport wheel track rut).

Hello everyone,

After the first winter with our carport, I noticed something. We added a carport last year and had the area paved at the same time. Now there are already noticeable ruts where the car is parked. I would say the paving looks slightly uneven and has settled by about 1cm (0.4 inches) overall.

I don’t like how it looks, and you can feel it when walking on it. Also, water might collect there.

Of course, some settlement is to be expected, as some movement is normal. But how much settlement is considered acceptable, and would you make a complaint to your landscaping contractor about this?

Thank you for your help!

Good luck

So 1cm (0.4 inches) is definitely not normal. Sorry

My landscaping contractor said that since he didn’t prepare the subbase, he can only compact it as well as possible. If the foundation layer isn’t properly compacted, ruts will form quite quickly. But no matter how well it’s prepared, rutting will eventually occur.

This means that in your case, the compaction was not done correctly.

Zaba12 schrieb:

My contractor said that since he didn’t prepare the base layer, he can only compact it as well as possible. If the sub-base isn’t properly compacted, there will quickly be ruts. But no matter how well you prepare it, ruts will eventually appear.

This means it wasn’t compacted properly in your case.

That’s how I see it too, and he did compact or prepare the base. So I’ll have him come back again to remove the stones at that spot, refill with gravel, compact it again, and put the stones back in, right?

I don’t expect it to take too much time now?

Bookstar schrieb:

I see it the same way, and he did compact or prepare the subsoil. So I’ll have him come back again, remove the stones from that spot, refill with gravel, compact it again, and put the stones back in, right?

I don’t imagine that will take too much time?

I suspect he’ll try to compact the rest instead. Removing everything, refilling, and re-compacting would probably be more labor-intensive.

The question is whether the rest can actually be compacted properly...

No, that’s never going to work; the groove is way too deep for that. And strangely, it’s only on one side... well, they should be able to remove those few stones, just about 3 hours of work 🙂