The thing that most often costs a day on a job in St. Albert is not the surface. It is machinery arriving to find it cannot get where the work is, which is a question worth answering before a date exists.
The access questions we settle in St. Albert before booking
How wide the entrance is, and whether a paver can pass through it or has to work from outside. That single measurement decides how much of the job is machine work and how much is done by hand.
Where material can be dropped, and how far it then has to be moved. Hot asphalt has a working window, so distance from the drop to the work is a real constraint rather than an inconvenience.
And what is overhead or shared. Low branches, wires and a neighbour's right of way all change the plan, which is why boundaries come up at the quote, the drive itself is priced after that, and access appears in the figure rather than arriving later.
Measured gate
The access survey
How your St. Albert access check works
Measure the entrance
The narrowest point, not the gate posts. A few inches decides whether a machine passes or the job becomes largely hand work.
Find the drop point
Where a truck can stand and how far material then travels. This sets how the day is staffed as much as the area does.
Look up and sideways
Branches, wires, and anything shared with a neighbour. All three have stopped jobs that looked straightforward on paper.
Price it as it is
If a drive needs hand work, that goes on the quote as hand work rather than being absorbed and then rushed on the day.
What it changes
What tight access changes for your St. Albert drive
Mostly the labour, not the specification. A hand-laid drive is built to the same depth and compacted properly; it simply takes longer and needs more people, and that belongs in the price honestly.
It can change the sequence too. Where a machine cannot reach, removal and base work may happen in sections rather than all at once, which occasionally extends a one-day job into two.
What it should never change is the build. The base gets the same treatment, the fall is still designed, and a quote that stays silent on access is one worth asking about before you accept it.
Because it decides how much of the job a machine can do. A drive a paver can run on lays faster than one reached through a gate, where more of the work is done by hand.
Yes, and to the same depth. It takes longer and needs more people, which is why it belongs on the quote as hand work rather than being absorbed and rushed.
It needs a conversation with the neighbour and a look at where the boundary actually sits, since the fence and the kerb are both unreliable guides to the surveyed line.
Not usually, but they change the plan and are far better found at the quote than on the morning. Both have stopped work that looked perfectly straightforward on a drawing.
Sometimes. Where machinery cannot reach, removal and base work may run in sections, and we would rather tell you that at the quote than halfway through the first day.
No. The depths and the compaction are the same; what changes is how long it takes and how many people are needed to keep the material within its working window.
Get your St. Albert drive checked for access and quoted
We will measure the entrance, the drop point and anything overhead, then quote the work with the hand labour shown as its own consideration rather than hidden.
