A new driveway is one of the larger amounts many households spend on a home, and it is easy to compare two quotes that are not for the same job. These guides explain paving decisions in plain language: what paving costs and why quotes differ, which material suits which job, how deep the base should be, why paving sinks and lifts, how to handle slopes and drainage, how estate rules work, and whether to pave before you sell.
Where we give prices, we name the contractor or guide that published them, so you can check the figure yourself. We do not publish prices of our own.
Published price ranges from Johannesburg paving contractors, each one attributed to its source, plus the part those tables leave out: why two quotes for the same driveway can be tens of thousands of rand apart.
Three paving quotes for the same driveway can look like three different jobs. Here is how to make them comparable, and how to spot the quote that leaves out the expensive part.
There is no single best paving. There is the best choice for how you use the space, how it should look and what you want to spend over its life.
Sunken patches, lifting blocks and water that will not drain away all have a cause underneath. Find it, and the repair lasts. Skip it, and the patch sinks again.
The base is the part of paving you never see again once the job is done. It is also the part that decides whether the paving lasts.
Most paving failures are water failures. On a sloping Johannesburg stand in a summer thunderstorm, the drainage design is what keeps a driveway in one piece.
In an estate or a complex, paving is not only between you and a contractor. Here is how responsibility and approval usually work, and how to avoid the common delays.
A tired driveway is the first thing a buyer sees. Whether to fix it before you sell is a cost question, and the answer is often a repair rather than a new driveway.