Craft Quantities
Plan & Takeoffs

Plan a driveway

Every trade, one set of measurements

Driveway planner

A driveway is the one job where the choice of surface changes almost everything under it, which is why comparing prices per square metre answers half the question. Give it a length and a width and it is worked out four ways — concrete, asphalt, gravel and block paving — each carrying its own sub-base, its own edging and its own sealing, so what you compare is the whole build-up rather than the top of it.

New drivewayNot drawn yet
  1. 1 Measure the driveway
  2. 2 Choose its finishes
  3. 3 Save it to My Project

Give the driveway a length and a width, and it is drawn here with every figure beside it.

The driveway

Nothing here is required. Each figure appears as soon as it has what it needs.

Length and width. The build-up depth is not asked here because it belongs to whichever surface you choose — each of the four brings its own, and each asks for it on its own row.

Add a driveway

Two figures, and then four ways of surfacing it worked out side by side — concrete, asphalt, gravel and block paving — each with what goes under it, which is the half a price comparison leaves out.

Everything the driveway needs

In the order the work is done. No row has a figure yet.

Nothing in this driveway is everything the driveway needs yet. Choose how a surface is finished, or what else is being done, and its rows appear here.

Assumptions assumed

Everything the figures above rest on that you did not give, and what they are still waiting for.

Nothing is assumed yet: give the driveway its measurements to begin.

How the planner runs

  1. Give the drive its length and its width, in the units you are working in.
  2. Read the four surfaces side by side, each with what goes under it rather than only the top layer.
  3. Take the one you are laying; the rest leave the estimate as soon as you choose.
  4. Answer the rows that ask about the ground, which is the part no rectangle can tell you.
  5. Save it into your project and price it against a supplier's rates.

Where the figures come from

Reading for the decisions

Questions

Why is there no figure for the falls?
Which way a drive falls, and what takes the water when it gets there, is decided on site against the levels around it. It is also the one part of a driveway that cannot be corrected afterwards without lifting the surface, which is exactly why this page will not put a number on it.
Why does the gravel option look so much cheaper?
Because it is, in materials. What the comparison cannot carry is how each surface behaves afterwards: gravel migrates and needs topping up, asphalt wants sealing on a cycle, block paving can be lifted and relaid over a service. Those are facts about the next ten years, not about the quantities, so the page gives you the quantities and leaves that judgement with you.
Does it include the geotextile?
It counts a separation membrane where the build-up calls for one, from the roll calculator, at the area of the drive plus the laps. Whether the ground under it needs one at all is a judgement about the subgrade.
Can I plan a drive and the fence beside it together?
Yes, and it is the reason this family shares one plan. Add the fence on its own planner and both sit in the same project, priced together.

When the work is a job rather than a room. Plenty of it never starts from a space — a slab, a roof, a deck, a panel upgrade. Each of those is a job takeoff: give it the few figures that job is described by, and every trade in it comes back together, the way the room does here.