Concreters in Ashtonfield, 2323
Ashtonfield lies directly south of East Maitland and the Green Hills shopping centre, in the part of the city council describes as about 30 km inland of Newcastle, with Metford north, Thornton north-east and Four Mile Creek south. Ashtonfield Public School on Norfolk Street opened in 2007, and council parks sit on Lord Howe Drive, Ballydoyle Drive and Kilkenny Circuit. The census shows a median age of 39 and about a third of homes owned outright, and council describes the district as detached houses with three or more bedrooms in the vast majority. That is a settled, owner-occupied suburb where the work is upgrading rather than finishing a builder’s job.
Permian hills and the subsidence district
Council’s vegetation report names Ashtonfield as one of the places where low, undulating hills form on Permian sediments, sandstone, shale, mudstone and siltstone with coal seams between, weathering readily to stony and clayey soils. This is not floodplain: council calls East Maitland and its neighbours relatively unaffected by flooding compared with Central Maitland, and Four Mile Creek drains north to the Hunter. What the hills do is move, as clay shrinks in dry months and swells in wet ones, on blocks that rarely sit level. Most of Ashtonfield sits inside the East Maitland Mine Subsidence District, which dates from 1974.
Renewal on settled blocks
A worn driveway that has lifted at the joints is the standard Ashtonfield job, with removal and replacement on a compacted base beating a patch. Owners who have paid the house down put money into a patio or alfresco slab behind a three bedroom home, a shed or garage slab for tools and trailer, and paths replacing cracked strips down the side. Cross-fall on the hills often means a stepped slab or a small retaining edge is part of the price.
Finishes for owner-occupiers
With owners staying put, finishes lean towards what lasts against the existing brick: plain broom for sheds and paths, coloured concrete or exposed aggregate for a driveway replaced in a front yard makeover. The only council rule on finish is that the layback, kerb and gutter stay plain concrete and any special surface on the footway must not be slippery.
The Ashtonfield price picture
The per square metre guide, supplied and laid, runs: driveways $95 to $185 by finish, exposed aggregate $130 to $185, paths $90 to $130, patios and alfresco $100 to $180, shed and garage slabs $110 to $150, plus about $35 to break out and remove old concrete. Cross-fall is the Ashtonfield variable: a driveway stepping down a hillside block needs more formwork, a thickened edge and a drainage plan, which the site visit prices. Measure up with the calculator, read the cost guide, the Section 138 guide, which covers Maitland’s $435 fee, the Hunter clay guide for hill soils, and the specification for what a quote spells out.
Nearby: East Maitland, Metford, Thornton