Draining floors for car parks: which one to choose

As technicians and designers know well, having two or more solutions available for the same work cannot always be an advantage. Sometimes, the wide possibility of choice it can lead to making decisions that, in practice, turn out to be incorrect or cause the planning time to worryingly increase. In the case of draining floors for parking lots, for example, we often find ourselves dealing with a great variety of alternative solutions and little indication as to which is the best.

For this reason, before starting to design it is necessary to consider all the options you have available and carefully weigh the pros and cons of each of them, so as to avoid making mistakes and wasting precious time. Not all materials and not all construction techniques can be used indifferently in any situation. In fact, the exact opposite is true: for every work that must be created there will be a material or a manufacturing technique that guarantees great advantages over the others.

In the case of external parking lots, then, it is necessary to distinguish a priori between two different types of works: small private ones (such as, for example, a driveway lawn transformed into a car park) and large public and private ones (a rest area in a public park or the parking area of ​​a shopping centre, for example).

Draining floors for car parks: which ones to choose

As already mentioned, the technical solutions to implement permeable surfaces There are many parking spaces available. They range from draining concrete to loose gravel, passing through the so-called ecological flooring for outdoors. The latter are often created using recycled aggregates, are acquiring growing consideration both from the companies that carry out the works and from those who "contract" the works.

Materials such as the stabilized land or techniques like lawn-saving grills they are in fact used with more than satisfactory results in the most disparate situations. Whether it is a large parking area (serving, for example, public parks or shopping centers) or a pitch inside a private lawn, it makes very little difference. The stabilized material and the grids allow interventions to be carried out in a short space of time and create surfaces that are (almost) immediately accessible to vehicles.

It should therefore not be surprising if these two options are increasingly used, albeit in different situations. While the stabilized land is favored in the creation of large-scale works, the lawn protection grill it is mainly used for small construction sites (such as the creation of an external car park in the garden).

Stabilized earth car parks: draining and ecological paving

Products like those of Nature Stabil Road line by Terra Solida Italia they allow the creation of permeable and ecological surfaces characterized by high mechanical resistance. Stabilized earth, an ecological and 100% recyclable material, is made by mixing quarry aggregates (or recycled aggregates from demolitions) with binders of natural origin: the result is a highly mechanically performing mixture that is not subject to erosion and degradation phenomena caused by the continuous transit of vehicles of all types.

The installation of stabilized earth requires the creation of a earthy background, permeable and at the same time compact, with a thickness varying between 25 and 40 centimetres. Above this base comes then the stabilized earth flooring was laid: using mineral binders, soil already present in situ and crushed stone from the quarry or recycled aggregates. Finally, the mixture must be compacted, so as to avoid the creation of "air pockets" or other problems that could compromise the stability of the driveway drainage surface. Within a few days of the opening of the construction site, the pavement will already be suitable for vehicles, thus limiting any disruption to traffic to a minimum.

Draining flooring with lawn protection grid: the "homemade" solution

If stabilized earth is the main option for large squares serving, for example, shopping centres, public parks or motorway rest areas, lawn grids such as those of the Garden Grid line by Terra Solida Italia are indicated for works that we could define as “homemade”. For example, the reinforced lawn can be used to create access roads to private homes and create a small car park in the garden behind the house.

This technical solution shares several strengths with stabilized. Overall, construction times are short and the surface created is immediately accessible to vehicles. Furthermore, the impact on the area in which the draining flooring with the grid is created is decidedly limited: the installation requires I dig between 15 and 20 centimeters deep and the use of absolutely natural and ecological materials such as sand, gravel and soil suitable for the growth of a turf.

It must be said that on some occasions the lawn guard can also be used in medium-sized public car parks. The reinforced lawn, in fact, requires a less impactful intervention, with times and costs that can be lower than stabilized earth. Furthermore, the use of grids allows you to maintain the continuity of the turf, a factor to be considered especially in the case of interventions in rural or naturalistic areas, where the aesthetic and natural factor has an undoubted importance.