How to choose a driveway company in Aylesbury
Every driveway looks good on the day it's finished. The difference between one that's still flat in ten years and one that dishes in three is buried by the end of day two, so the only tool you have is the questions you ask before anyone digs.
Below are nine of them. They're written to be taken to every quote you get, including ours. A company that answers them clearly and in writing is telling you something useful; so is one that doesn't.
Nine questions to ask every driveway installer
Question 1
How deep is the sub-base, and in how many compacted layers?
The answer you want is a number and a count: 150mm for a domestic drive, laid and compacted in 75mm layers. A whacker plate only compacts the top 75mm or so, so 150mm tipped in one go leaves loose stone under a hard crust. If the answer is vague, or is about the blocks rather than the stone, that tells you what you need to know.
Question 2
Is settlement covered by the guarantee, in writing?
Most guarantees quietly cover the surface only. Settlement is a sub-base failure, and it is the failure that actually happens. Ask to see the clause, not to be told it's included.
Question 3
How long is the guarantee, and does it transfer with the house?
A guarantee tied to you personally is worth less if you sell. Ask for the term, what voids it, and whether it passes to the next owner.
Question 4
Is the quote fixed, and what triggers a variation?
A fixed price with named triggers — you change the scope, or the ground contains something nobody could have known about — is fair. A day rate, or an estimate that firms up later, transfers the entire risk of a bad dig onto you.
Question 5
What is your company number and registered address?
You can look both up on Companies House in a minute: incorporation date, filed accounts, previous dissolved companies at the same address. A sole trader is legitimate too — but you should know which one you're dealing with before money moves.
Question 6
Can I see the public liability certificate?
Ask for the certificate, not for reassurance. Check the insurer, the expiry date, the amount of cover and that the name on it matches the name on the quote. Driveway work involves machines near buildings, services and cars.
Question 7
Who is actually on site — your people or subcontractors?
Subcontracting is not automatically bad, but it changes who is accountable if something goes wrong and who comes back under the guarantee. You want to know whether the person who quoted will be on site.
Question 8
Where does the water go, and does that need planning permission?
More than five square metres of impermeable surface draining onto the road needs planning permission. A permeable build-up, or run-off to a lawn or border, doesn't. A company that shrugs at this question hasn't thought about the drainage either.
Question 9
Will you photograph the base before you cover it?
Everything that decides whether a drive lasts is buried by the end of day two. Photographs of the excavation, membrane, each compacted layer and the edge haunching are the only evidence that ever exists. It costs a contractor nothing to agree to, which makes a refusal informative.
Where to check a company
Search “best driveway company Aylesbury” and you mostly get directories rather than contractors. That's not a conspiracy — it's because the directories hold the thing you're actually looking for, which is other people's experience. Here's what each one genuinely tells you.
Checkatrade
Paid membership with identity, insurance and (for limited companies) status checks at sign-up, plus reviews collected from customers the trader supplies. It tells you a company has been through a vetting process and has a review history. It does not tell you the base was 150mm.
TrustATrader
Similar model: vetted membership and customer reviews. Useful for the same reason and with the same limit — it evidences that a business exists, is insured and has been checked, not how it builds.
Google Business Profile
The reviews hardest to control, because anyone can leave one and the company can't select who is invited. Read the one- and two-star reviews and, more importantly, the replies. How a company answers a complaint is the most useful signal on the whole internet.
Companies House
Free, official and instant. Incorporation date, registered address, directors, filed accounts, and whether the same directors have dissolved companies behind them. It costs you two minutes and no contractor can influence what it says.
Be realistic about review counts. A company with two hundred reviews across several years has been tested in public in a way a new one hasn't, and no amount of good intentions substitutes for that. A company with none — and that currently includes us — is asking you to take more on trust. That's a legitimate thing to weigh against price, guarantee wording and whatever evidence they can actually show you.
How we'd score against this list
It would be a strange page that set nine questions and then dodged them. Here are our own answers, including the two that don't flatter us.
Sub-base depth and layers
Answered
150mm compacted for a domestic drive, laid in 75mm layers and compacted separately, over a geotextile membrane. It's on our how-we-build page in the same words we'd say on the doorstep.
Settlement covered in writing
Answered
Yes. Our guarantee explicitly covers the sub-base, excavation depth, falls and edge restraints, not just the surface. Read the wording before you take our word for it.
Guarantee length and transfer
Answered
Five years' workmanship. It's written to cover the work rather than the person, so it stands if the house changes hands — the terms are set out in full on the guarantee page.
Fixed quote and variations
Answered
Fixed once we've measured. It moves only if you change the scope, or if the ground contains something nobody could have known was there — in which case we stop, show you, and agree the cost before continuing.
Company number and registered address
Weak — read it
We'll give you both on the quote, in writing, so you can check them yourself. We're deliberately not publishing registration details on this page until they can be stated accurately — treat their absence here as something to ask us about directly.
Public liability certificate
Answered
Available on request before any work starts, as the certificate itself, so you can check the insurer, the sum insured and the expiry date rather than take a claim on trust.
Who is on site
Answered
Our own people do the ground work. Specialist elements — resin, tarmac laying, some drainage connections — can involve specialist teams, and we'll tell you which parts before you sign rather than after.
Where the water goes
Answered
Worked out at the survey, on the drawing and in the quote: falls away from the building, permeable build-up or linear channel drainage where it's needed, and a clear answer on whether planning permission applies.
Photographs of the base
Answered
Yes, as standard, and you get them as a PDF at the end of the job — set-out, excavation, membrane, each sub-base layer, compaction, edge haunching and laying course.
Reviews — the honest weak spot
Weak — read it
This is where we score badly against our own checklist. We do not have a long public review history, and we won't manufacture one. That means you are being asked to take more on trust than you would with an established firm, and the only things we can offer against that are the written guarantee, the fixed price and the photographic record. If that isn't enough, checking us against these nine questions alongside two other quotes is exactly the right thing to do.
The relevant pages, so you can check the claims rather than accept them: how we build, the guarantee terms and the build records.
Take the nine questions with you
Print this list, or save it as a PDF from the print dialogue, and take it to every quote — including ours. The printed page contains the questions only.
- 1.How deep is the sub-base, and in how many compacted layers?
- 2.Is settlement covered by the guarantee, in writing?
- 3.How long is the guarantee, and does it transfer with the house?
- 4.Is the quote fixed, and what triggers a variation?
- 5.What is your company number and registered address?
- 6.Can I see the public liability certificate?
- 7.Who is actually on site — your people or subcontractors?
- 8.Where does the water go, and does that need planning permission?
- 9.Will you photograph the base before you cover it?