Driveway Cleaning Cost Per Square Metre

Driveways are priced by the square metre almost everywhere in the trade, which is sensible, and then the figure that actually decides most bills is the minimum charge, which almost nobody mentions.

The rates

My published rates, which you can check against anybody else’s quote:

Concrete, slabs and pattern imprinted concrete: £4.50 a square metre.

Block paving, cleaned and re-sanded with kiln-dried sand: £5.50 a square metre.

Minimum job: £150.

The pound difference on block paving is the re-sanding. It is materials and it is an extra pass over the whole drive with a brush, and it is included rather than offered afterwards as an upgrade.

Why the minimum binds more often than you would think

Every job carries a fixed overhead before any cleaning happens. Loading the van, driving, setting up, running out hose and getting water on, then packing down and cleaning the equipment. Call it ninety minutes, and it is the same ninety minutes whether the drive is 20 square metres or 70.

Divide £150 by £4.50 and you get 33 square metres. Below that, the minimum is your price and the rate is irrelevant.

Most driveways are above that line, which is why the minimum matters less on drives than on patios. But a single-car frontage with a path is frequently 22 to 28 square metres, and those jobs all cost £150.

If that is you, add the path, the steps and the bin area. The marginal cost of extra square metres once I am set up is genuinely low, and you are already paying for the setup.

Measuring your drive without a tape measure

Pace the length. Pace the width. Multiply.

A comfortable adult pace is close enough to a metre for a quote, and any tradesman working from your figures will build in a little tolerance anyway.

Some reference points from jobs I have actually done. A single car frontage with a path down one side is usually 20 to 28 square metres. Two cars side by side with room to walk round is 30 to 40. A double drive with turning space in front of a garage is 45 to 60. A country approach drive can be anything from 80 upwards.

If you are within about 15% you will get an accurate quote. If you are wildly out, a photograph will catch it, which is why photographs matter more than measurements.

What a real quote should contain

A fixed total, not a range and not a day rate.

The rate it was worked out from and the area it was applied to, so you can check the arithmetic.

What is included. On block paving that must state whether re-sanding is in the price. This is the single most common place for a quote to be quietly light.

An expected time on site.

What is not included. Sealing, weed treatment, repairs.

If a quote is a single number with no working, ask for the working. Anybody pricing honestly can produce it in thirty seconds.

Day rates

Some firms quote a day rate, typically £250 to £400 for one person.

The problem is the incentive. A day rate pays somebody for the time they spend, so being slow is rewarded and being efficient is punished. A fixed price pays for the outcome, and if the job runs over, that is the contractor’s risk rather than yours.

I have never met a customer who preferred a day rate once the difference was explained. I quote fixed prices and if I have misjudged a job, I absorb it.

What legitimately costs more

Thick moss that needs scraping before washing. On a heavily overgrown drive this is a real addition, and it should be identified from photographs at quote stage rather than discovered on the day.

Poor access, where the van cannot get within about 30 metres of the work.

Natural stone or anything fragile that needs lower pressure and more passes.

Oil and tyre marks needing degreaser and dwell time.

Sealing, which is always a separate visit because the surface must be dry through.

What should not cost more

Travel, within a sensible radius. If somebody adds a travel charge for eight miles, they have priced the job wrong and are patching it.

Water, if you have an outside tap.

Disposal of the slurry, which goes to your drain or soakaway and is part of doing the job properly.

Comparing quotes fairly

Three quotes for the same drive frequently vary by a factor of two, and the cheapest is not automatically the worst.

Check the same three things in each. Is it a fixed price or a rate. Is re-sanding included on block paving. Is there a stated time on site.

A £150 quote that does not include re-sanding is more expensive than a £190 quote that does, because you will be paying somebody else to come and do the sand, or you will be living with hollow joints.

One number worth remembering

For a typical two-car block paved drive of 35 square metres, cleaned and re-sanded, expect around £190 in 2026 in this part of the country.

If you are quoted £400 for that, somebody is charging what they think you will pay. If you are quoted £90, something is being left out, and it is almost always the sand.

Worked examples

Using my published rates, so you can check the arithmetic against any quote you receive.

A single car frontage, 24 square metres of concrete. Twenty-four times £4.50 is £108, which is below the minimum, so you pay £150. Around two and a half hours. Worth adding the path.

Two cars on block paving, 35 square metres. Thirty-five times £5.50 is £192.50, including kiln-dried re-sanding. Most of a working day. This is the single most common driveway job I quote.

A double drive with turning space, 55 square metres of block paving. £302.50. A full day plus a return trip to re-sand in winter.

A country approach drive, 90 square metres of block paving. £495. Two days in practice once the return visit is counted.

The same 90 square metres with a joint-stabilising sealer. Another £675, which is the point at which I usually suggest sealing only the section that takes the traffic rather than the whole run down to the road.

Why quotes for the same drive vary so much

Three quotes on one driveway commonly range from £120 to £400. That spread is not random and the reasons are worth knowing.

The £120 quote. Almost always excludes re-sanding, and frequently means a lance rather than a surface cleaner. The drive will look good for a season.

The £190 quote. A working sole trader charging a published rate with the sand included.

The £400 quote. Either a firm with a van, a fitter, overheads and a marketing budget, all of which are legitimate costs, or somebody pricing by what the house looks like it can afford.

The middle one is usually the honest one, and the way to confirm it is to ask for the rate and the area rather than accepting a single total.

Payment, and what is normal

For a domestic driveway there is no reason to pay anything up front. The materials are a few bags of sand and the labour is a day.

Payment on completion, by bank transfer, against an invoice with a name, an address and a phone number on it.

A deposit request on a one-day domestic cleaning job is unusual and I would ask why. A request for cash with no invoice means there is no record if something goes wrong, which matters more than the discount.

What a driveway clean will not do

Fix settlement. A dip in the drive will look worse afterwards, not better, because the growth was hiding it.

Remove old oil staining completely.

Stop weeds forever. It removes what is growing and re-sanding makes it much harder for the next seed, but seed still blows in.

Restore faded block colour to new. It removes the grey film and gives you back the colour that is actually there, which is usually more than people expect and occasionally less than they hoped.

Repair spalling concrete, where the surface is flaking and the aggregate is showing. Pressure accelerates that.

A quote that promises any of those is worth a second look.