Built for vehicles
20 to 25 MPa trafficable to AS 3727.1 as standard, with higher strength mixes available for heavier or commercial use.
Permeable Pavement Driveway
Want a Permeable Pavement Driveway? Get One That Carries the Car
A driveway has to do two jobs at once: take the rain and take the weight, every day, for decades. Plenty of permeable options do one and struggle with the other. We pour a permeable driveway rated 20 to 25 MPa and trafficable to AS 3727.1, so the water goes down and the car goes on.
Strength first, because it's a driveway
The reason most people land on the term permeable pavement driveway is a council condition or a puddle. Both are solvable, but only if the surface is engineered as a pavement rather than a drainage feature. Our trafficable mixes run 20 to 25 MPa, placed to AS 3727.1 for domestic driveways and hardstands, with higher strength mixes available where an engineer or a commercial crossover calls for them. Reversing trailers, a loaded ute, a removalist truck on handover day: normal driveway loading, designed for.
The drainage is not a compromise for that strength. Permcon holds 20 to 26 per cent interconnected voids and takes water at 130 to 170 litres per minute per square metre, measured at 9,400 millimetres per hour by VicRoads. The classic driveway problem, water sheeting down the slope and pooling against the garage threshold, simply does not form, because the rain leaves the surface where it lands rather than travelling to the low point.
Underneath, an open-graded base holds 28 to 56 litres per square metre and either infiltrates into the subgrade or discharges slowly where the ground is tight. That base is what turns a driveway into stormwater infrastructure on your permit, and it is why a permeable driveway can free up impervious-area allowance for the house behind it.
Where the water goes
The surface takes in 130 to 170 litres of rain per minute, per square metre, through voids that run through the material itself, 20 to 26 per cent of the slab by volume. Independent testing on a VicRoads project measured 9,400 millimetres per hour.
Below the slab, an open-graded stone base stores the water and lets it soak or release at a controlled rate, holding 28 to 56 litres per square metre inside the system.
Will it work at my place?
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 4
What is the ground like?
A rough answer is fine. We confirm it on site.
Enquire now
Tell us about your project
Get in touch today to discuss your project. We're here to help with all your permeable concrete requirements, from a single driveway to major civil infrastructure.
📞Call us1300 010 499✉️Email us[email protected]
📍Head officeFactory 7, 25-39 Cook Road, Mitcham VIC 3132
The finish, poured
What a poured permeable driveway gets you
Dry at the garage door
Water enters across the whole slab at 130 to 170 litres per minute per square metre, so nothing runs down and pools at the threshold.
Counts as permeable area
A fully permeable surface that supports council permeability targets and water sensitive urban design conditions on new builds and extensions.
Detention without a tank
28 to 56 litres per square metre stored in the base, which often reduces or removes the need for separate detention.
Safe underfoot
A P4 slip rating wet or dry, and no sheet of water across the surface between the car and the front door.
Done in one visit
Our crews place 500 square metres and more per day, so most residential driveways are a single continuous pour.
Common questions
My council wants a set percentage of permeable area. Does this count?+
Permeable concrete is a fully permeable surface, so it counts toward permeability targets and supports water sensitive urban design conditions. Percentages and evidence requirements differ between councils, so confirm the number with your planner. We can supply the surface documentation and performance figures your application needs, including infiltration and detention values for the system we would build.
Is it strong enough for a driveway with a heavy vehicle on it?+
For cars, four-wheel drives, utes, trailers and normal delivery traffic, yes, at 20 to 25 MPa trafficable to AS 3727.1. For heavier or repeated commercial loading we design up, and higher strength mixes are available. What we will not recommend it for is high-speed heavy pavement, which is a different class of job, and we will say so rather than sell you the wrong surface.
What about the crossover between the kerb and my property?+
Crossovers are usually specified separately by the council, often to their own detail, and that section may need to be conventional concrete. It does not stop the driveway itself being permeable. We work to whatever the crossover permit requires and pour the permeable surface from the property boundary in.
Will it stain from oil drips or tyre marks?+
Less than people expect. The open texture and exposed aggregate finish break up marks that would show on a smooth trowelled slab, and drips pass into the voids rather than sitting in a pool on top. If something significant spills, a pressure wash followed by vacuuming cleans the surface and restores infiltration at the same time.
How long does a driveway take from first call to finished?+
The sequence is a free on-site assessment, a fixed quote, then excavation, base and pour. Placement itself is fast, with 500 square metres and more per day, so most residential driveways are poured in a single day once the base is ready. Timing depends on your site, access and any council approvals, and your estimator will give you the schedule for your job, not a generic one.
Permeable pavement driveway: what the term covers
Permeable pavement is the American-influenced term for a surface built so rain passes through it into a stone base rather than running off to a kerb or grate. Applied to a driveway, it covers several products: porous asphalt, segmental permeable pavers, plastic grids filled with gravel or turf, and poured permeable concrete. They all target the same outcome, which is keeping rain on site. They differ enormously in how they behave under a car parked in the same spot every night for fifteen years.
We pour the concrete version. If you want the full residential picture including finishes, colours and site preparation, see our permeable concrete driveways page. This page covers the driveway-specific engineering.
Loading, strength and standards
A driveway is a pavement and should be specified like one. Our trafficable mixes are placed at 20 to 25 MPa and comply with AS 3727.1, the standard covering residential and light commercial pavements, with higher strength options where an engineer nominates them. The material is a no-fines cementitious mix, so its strength comes from the paste bond between aggregate particles rather than a dense sand matrix. That means placement and compaction matter, which is why our own crews place it rather than a subcontractor working off a spec sheet. Over thirty years we have installed more than 85,000 square metres of it.
Aggregate size is set by region: 7 mm in Victoria and Tasmania, 10 mm in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. Smaller aggregate gives a tighter surface texture without losing the void structure that carries the water.
Council rules on new builds and extensions
Most Australian councils now cap the impervious area on a residential lot, and many attach stormwater conditions to a new dwelling, a second dwelling or a large extension. A sealed concrete driveway is often the single biggest impervious surface on a suburban block, so making it permeable can be the difference between a compliant plan and a redesign, or between needing a detention tank and not needing one. The pavement carries its own detention: an open-graded base storing 28 to 56 litres of water per square metre, with a system runoff coefficient around 0.3 and roughly 70 per cent of pollutants filtered out on the way through.
The same properties make a permeable driveway one of the few pavements accepted inside a tree protection zone, because water and air still reach the root plate. If you have a significant tree between the street and the garage, this is often the only surface a council arborist will approve.
Ground conditions and what we check on site
We work with subgrades of CBR 5 and above directly. Below that, or on reactive clay, the design changes rather than the answer: a deeper base, geotextile separation, and where infiltration is limited or not permitted, a lined base with a metered outlet so the pavement still detains and filters. The on-site assessment looks at falls, soil, existing drainage, garage threshold levels and truck access, because all five change the price and the build. That is why we quote from the ground rather than a rate table.
Get a real figure for your driveway
An estimator walks the site, checks the fall to the garage and the soil under it, and prices a permeable driveway that will pass your council conditions. Call 1300 010 499 or book a free on-site assessment.