Essential Products Delivered to Your Site by Our Aggregate Suppliers in Dover | Shaw Haulage
As aggregate suppliers for Dover, Shaw Haulage ensures that individuals, trades and companies in the area have access to high quality primary and secondary aggregates for projects of all types. We use our fleet of grab hire vehicles to deliver aggregate to your site, and to unload safely and efficiently through use of the vehicle’s mechanical arm. Many of our aggregates are recycled, having been gathered for screening and processing during muckaway and land restoration projects – two other services we provide clients in Dover.
Below, we’ve looked to provide some helpful advice covering the question: how do you select the right aggregate for your project? But if you’re more interested in the aforementioned muckaway and land restoration services, or grab hire as a standalone offering, skip ahead by calling us direct on 01795 420606.
Selecting the Right Aggregate for Your Project in Dover
Size – Aggregates range in size, from fine sand to decently sized rocks; anything larger than a quarter inch is defined as a course aggregate, while anything less is a fine aggregate. Two general rules of thumb our aggregate suppliers would recommend:
- Don’t use aggregates that more than a third in diameter than a third of the depth of the concrete slab you’re constructing.
- If the countertop is to be an inch and a half thick, the aggregate should be less than half an inch in size
Many Dover clients will combine both fine and coarse aggregates to create a solid base; we can recommend combinations, and have a vast amount of options available due to our work recycling waste via muckaway, land restoration and grab hire.
Shape – Aggregate suppliers can offer both angular and rounded particulates. The latter tend to create a larger surface area due to locking together more efficiently. However, an exceptionally angular blend will also be hard to work with. Rounded particulates use less cement paste, and are often more workable – but durability may suffer in turn.
Material – You might be surprised to hear that most natural stone and crushed rock can be employed in concrete. Some of the more common materials we gather during the course of muckaway and land restoration, and offer for delivery to Dover locales with our grab hire fleet, include limestone, quartz, basalt, granite and even marble. If leaving an exposed finish, you’ll want something that’s pleasing on the eye and consistent with the wider design scheme, while maintaining the requisite strength.
Grade – Another important consideration is grade. Well-graded aggregates will have almost no gaps at all between them, with particles spanning from the very fine to the very course. These will be incredibly strong, but not particularly permeable. Poorly graded aggregates have far more fluctuation in terms of size, meaning much larger gaps – even when densely packed.
Cement paste can help here, but both performance and economical concerns remain. Gap graded aggregates will mix course and fine aggregates, with less variation than the prior grade; but isolated voids may reduce workability of the cement. So it’s important that Dover residents consider the end use of the concrete itself, to consider whether they’ll need a high-graded aggregate blend or not.