Monoblock Driveways
Laid to pattern with a soldier course and charcoal borders, on a base built to take the weight of a car rather than just the look of one.
Monoblock, tarmac and landscaping across Broughty Ferry, Dundee and Angus. A family building firm that supplies the asphalt and macadam as well as laying it.
If somebody quoting for your drive calls it block paving, they are not from Dundee.
Everywhere south of here it is block paving. Here it is monoblock, and it has been for as long as anyone has been laying it. It is a small thing, but it tells you who you are dealing with before they have picked up a shovel.
We are based on Long Lane in Broughty Ferry. The drives we lay are in the streets around us, on the same coastal ground, in the same weather that comes in off the Tay. That matters more for how a driveway ages than any brochure will tell you.
Most driveway contractors only lay driveways. We are builders, so the same crew handles the groundworks, the walls, the steps and the rendering that a drive usually turns out to need.
Laid to pattern with a soldier course and charcoal borders, on a base built to take the weight of a car rather than just the look of one.
We are reliable suppliers of asphalt and macadam as well as layers of it, so the material on your drive comes from the same firm that puts it down.
Indian sandstone and riven flags, laid two-tier with sett borders and steps where the ground falls away, which round here it usually does.
Turf, decking, gravel beds, retaining walls and the edging that holds it all in place. The garden finished, not just the hard bit.
Curved entrance steps, raised planters and walling cut to the radius, so the approach to the door matches the drive it comes off.
Plastering and roughcasting, extensions and loft conversions. If the job grows beyond the driveway, you do not need a second firm.
Look through what customers have written about this firm and one name is in all of it. John, Anne and Kevin each named Ian. He is the one who comes out to look at the job, prices it, and answers the phone when you ring about it afterwards.
That is worth knowing before you commit thousands of pounds to anyone. On a driveway there is no showroom and no returns policy. What you are actually buying is whoever turns up, and whether they are still around next year.
McDonald Builders Ltd is a Dundee family building firm, registered in Scotland, working out of 58 Long Lane in Broughty Ferry.
All our own work at real houses in Dundee and Angus, photographed as we finished.
A driveway fails from the bottom up, and on this coast it is frost and standing water that finds the weakness. Almost every sunken drive in Dundee was decided long before the blocks went down.
The old surface and the soft ground beneath come out and go on the wagon. Nothing gets raked to the side and buried under your new drive.
Type 1 stone laid and compacted in layers rather than one thick dump. This is the part that carries the car, and the part nobody can inspect later.
Edge restraints haunched in concrete and the levels set to run water off the drive and away from the house, not towards the front door.
Blocks cut in and kiln dried sand vibrated into the joints, or the tarmac rolled hot. Then the site is swept and we walk it with you.
Written by households in Dundee and Broughty Ferry after we had packed up and left. Go and read them before you ring anybody.
We are on Long Lane in Broughty Ferry, and most of our work is within a short run of it. If you are further out, ring and ask.
Ian will come out, measure up and price it properly. No charge for the visit and no obligation afterwards.