Wa-Karroong
Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative in Geelong has a new home. Wa-Karroong began as a conversation and got built by many hands, APC's among them.
Melbourne
Permeable Concrete Melbourne
Rain on a Permcon driveway goes down through the slab, not along the kerb to the side-entry pit. It's permeable concrete, poured in one piece by our Mitcham crews on Melbourne driveways, footpaths, car parks and courts.
Prefer to talk? Call 1300 010 499
Permeable concrete from Mitcham, poured by our own crews
We're on Cook Road in Mitcham. Our crews place it themselves, right across the metro area.
Search online and you'll find pavers and plastic grids as well as us. Ours is poured, not gravel. One continuous slab with no joints.
What the planning permit asks for
Read the conditions on your permit first, because plenty of Melbourne jobs carry a stormwater one. For a small site that now means BlueFactor, which replaced STORM. A bigger or more complex development will still be modelled in MUSIC, and Permcon is MUSIC certified; whoever builds the model can get the parameters from us.
Clause 55 guidance sets a separate test. At least 20 per cent of the site should let water into deep soil, and pervious driveways and paths are named as a way to get there. Put townhouses on an old weatherboard block and the shared driveway can be a big share of that figure. How much of it counts is your council's decision under its own controls, so we read your permit and give your designer or engineer our storage figures in writing.
What's under the slab: sand, clay and the base
Dig a post hole in Broadmeadows and you'll usually hit clay. Mentone is more likely sand. That's the rough split across Melbourne: clay through much of the north and west, sandier ground to the south-east and around the bay.
Rain falls through its voids into a bed of clean screenings, and on sand it soaks away from there. Clay holds it up. So the base works as a tank instead: at 85 per cent design capacity each 100 mm of screenings stores 28 litres a square metre, and an under-drain at the bottom lets it go slowly.
Depth gets set once we've looked at your ground, not from a soil map. We're always happy to look and review and go through it with a client. Engineers will find base profiles on the technical page.
What we've poured around Melbourne
Mostly shared driveways. Victorian Government housing uses our permeable shared driveway through most of the builders on its panel, so our crews have poured that detail under a lot of new townhouses in the suburbs. Builders lining up a run of them can start at our permeable driveways page.
On the Peninsula we poured a VicRoads bus stop at Mornington inside a tree protection zone, and a 2,200 m² car park for a hot springs at Fingal, where rain drops straight into the sand. If you've got a car park to drain, the car parks page goes further.
What goes down on your job
- A 125 mm slab as standard; heavier vehicles get a thicker one
- Permcon at 25 MPa or better
- 7 mm aggregate in Victoria
- Surface infiltration of 8,000 to 10,000 millimetres per hour
- P4 slip rating
- Plain grey, charcoal, soapstone or sandstone
- 10-year structural warranty on every slab (conditions apply)
Recent projects
Early Learning Centre, Warwick
A council job in Warwick: light-coloured Ultracon poured around an Early Learning Centre's existing cubby houses, sandstone blocks and garden beds to make a permeable play area.
Permcon Garage Driveway
A grey Permcon driveway runs up to a brown garage door, with a mulched garden bed and timber posts along the side.
Driveway for Residential Units
Ferns and red-leaved planting mark the bend where this dark grey Ultracon driveway curves past shared garages, its edges softened by garden beds.
Housing Unit Car Park
Wheel stops in yellow and black, bays marked in white, a wide aisle: a dark grey Ultracon permeable car park for housing units in front of black-and-white-clad townhouses.
Residential Driveway Project
Split down the middle by a black timber fence, two plain grey permeable parking pads front a contemporary home and finish at garden beds on each side.
Where we pour
Our crews cover greater Melbourne
✓Eastern suburbs✓Inner north✓Bayside✓Western suburbs✓South-east✓Mornington Peninsula✓Yarra Ranges✓Regional Victoria
How a Melbourne job runs
From the first call to handover
01
Start with the address
Give us the address and a rough area, plus the permit or drainage plan if you've got one. An estimator in Mitcham calls you back.
02
We visit
We check the fall and whether a Boral truck can back in. Then where overland water finishes up and what the ground will take, which sets the base depth and any under-drain.
03
The price, in writing
Slab thickness, base depth, drainage and finish, written down beside the price. Storage figures go to your designer for the BlueFactor or MUSIC model.
04
Pour day
The screenings base goes down first. Then the mix arrives in Boral trucks and the crew places it in one continuous run; on a big job that's 500 m² and more in a day.
05
Cure and handover
Once the slab has cured, we hand over the warranty and the upkeep schedule. It's a monthly look for leaves and sediment, and a sweep once a year.
What Melbourne callers ask us
Will my council sign off on permeable concrete?+
Not something we'll promise over the phone. It's your council's call, under its own controls, and most councils want rain soaking away on site so it isn't loading their stormwater pipes. We design the slab and base to your permit conditions; the planning section above has more.
We're on clay out west. Will it still drain?+
Yes. On a clay block, keep any bare garden beds above the driveway seeded or planted so soil doesn't wash onto it after rain.
Do you work outside the eastern suburbs?+
We cover all of metro Melbourne. For regional Victoria, the Victorian locations page covers the rest of the state.
Is there one I can go and look at?+
Probably. Government housing shared driveways go in around Melbourne every year, so ask when you call and we'll tell you if there's one near you to see from the footpath. Before that, read the Warrandyte write-up or the Pascoe Vale Ultracon job.
Book a look at your Melbourne site
We'll walk the block and check the ground against your permit, then tell you what the slab and base need to be. Have the permit handy when you ring Mitcham.
Unsure about your block
Check if permeable concrete suits your site
A few quick questions about your site. You get a straight answer about whether permeable concrete is the right call, including when it isn't, before anyone asks for your details.
Site check · 1 of 5
What are you surfacing?
Enquire now
Tell us about your project
Tell us where the site is and what you're planning. An estimator from your state team will call you back, look at the site with you and give you a real figure, from a single driveway to a council car park.
📞Call us1300 010 499✉️Email us[email protected]
📍Head officeFactory 7, 25-39 Cook Road, Mitcham VIC 3132