How to restore a pebble mix driveway?

[katiemaroo]

Hi, my pebble mix driveway has deteriorated over time. It looks washed out and stained. It’s probably 23 years old. Don’t want to pay a fortune to have it done again plus it’s not really in need of replacement. Any ideas to restore it? Thanks so much. 

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @katiemaroo. It's terrific to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about restoring a driveway.

A few images of the driveway, including the degraded sections, would really help our members better understand what you're working with. That way, they'll then be able to offer informed advice to assist you with your project. Let me know if you need a hand uploading images. Also, can you please tell us if this is a Pebblecrete driveway with small stones glued together or a loose-fill gravel driveway? If it's loose fill, you might just require adding a new batch of bulk pebbles to the area.

I'm keen to assist with your project and provide ideas on how you can restore the driveway.

Mitchell
 

[katiemaroo]

[Akanksha]

Hello @katiemaroo,

Many thanks for providing those photos of your driveway so our members can have a better idea about what you're dealing with. Our resident D.I.Y. expert @EricL will be happy to assist you when he's back online on the site later.

In the meantime, let me tag our ever-helpful members @JRRed, @prettyliving, @Noyade and @Dave-1 to see if they have any thoughts.

Akanksha

[Dave-1]

Good Morning @katiemaroo 

I recently used a water pressure washer to do a section of my concrete driveway. Just because I had acess to one and I was cleaning some paint off my patio so it was a case of try it and see. It came up surprisngly well. If you have a hich pressure washer (mine was gifted to me from aa friend and he had bought it from Aldi) It really was strong enough to remove everyday dirt . Just took some time.

The surface looks like its still nicely attached to the concrete. There are no points that have lifted? If there are none I would suggest to have a go with a water pressure washer, at least for a first step. 

Dave

[MitchellMc]

Sorry for the delay in my reply, @katiemaroo, and thanks for those images. 

As @Dave-1 mentioned, your driveway looks to be in a reasonable condition, and I reckon it will look very nice after a cleaning. A pressure washer with a patio cleaning head like the Ryobi 1800W 2030PSI Pressure Washer would make this job a breeze. The patio cleaning head allows you to cover large surface areas easily and won't have so much of a tendency to blast the little stones out of the surface like a jet nozzle. Since the area looks like it has a significant amount of growth and debris, I recommend applying 30 Seconds Outdoor cleaner before pressure washing and then again after you have finished. This will help remove some of the staining that the pressure washer can't.

I'll be keen to see how your Pebblecrete comes up after a decent clean. Please keep us updated.

Mitchell