my ex-area of expertise .... i say expertise because the surfaces i dealt with had anything from cars, trucks and up to those monster forklifts carrying 40 foot containers you see at the shipping ports, 100 tonne worth, we paved football fields worth of areas for Patrick's at Port Botany in Sydney.
Firstly, most people blame the tiles or tilers work if any cracking occurs, but don't realize the main reason for a fail of most pavement surfaces is actually the subgrade underneath, if the concrete moves/shfits/migrates in anyway. this will always reflect to the surface on top.
An example of this might be the concrete is laid straight on top of a clay sub-base, with not enough coarse river sand between, the clay gets wet and swells, dries out and shrinks, this starts to effect the concrete above, or opposite to this, the sub-base under the concrete migrates, so it was fine soil that was not compacted well, or there was water movement helping to migrate this sub-base, now we have a cavity and the concrete is having to bridge the cavity everytime a car passes over it, the concrete sinks pr cracks itself, but the tile can't sink with it as its a rigid surface on top attached to all the other tiles ... its going to crack as the tile can't hold the weight without the concrete underneath ... concrete only needs to sink 5mm and major pressure is being applied to the tile.
Bloody useless tilers the customer screams !!! .... tiler comes round and says its the tradesmen who laid the concretes fault ... and off starts this agruement between you and the trades .... Any outside area - TRADESMEN SHOULD BE INVOLVED OR DOING, EXCAVATION, SUB-BASES AND TOP SURFACE
Expansion joints (ugly) .. yep these will help, but depending on the weights that will be driven on top, is it better to have the expansion joints in the concrete matching the expansion joints in the tiles exactly, so a whole section can move together ... better but still ugly ..55
Different weight forces applied by the car .... is it a driveway that you are only driving in and out in a straight line .... will the line be exactly the same year after year ... or is the area big enough that turning will be involved, therefore a skewing effect on the tile and subgrade ... this is the biggest detriments to any paved surface, well that and weight, both of which we had to deal with in the container terminals, forklifts skew read bad, but a front wheel of a car turning hard applies a lot for pressure as well.
A tile popping up or off is more a adhesion issue, and yeah blame the tiler .... but cracking, if the tiler wasn't involved in the subgrades underneath, it probably isn't his fault.
So would i tile a driveway ? ..... only if the tiler was experienced in traffic areas, and he was involved in the whole job from dirt up ..... tiling is a rigid system, it has to be done perfectly in combination of what its laid on.
Brick Paving is actually better system for weight and skew of traffic as its a flexible system, but it shouldn't be laid on concrete, as any subgrade water can't permeate or escape away as easy, and sand migration can occur. Brick Paving is mush better laid on Road-base ...
I have just reliased i have explained all this before, as i end up pointing to my driveway that i paved, i actually used a very small percentage of cement mixed through a 20mm Road-base, watered and compacted. so it still had some felxabilty, could drain any subgrade water , and 20 years later after skewing bobcats, boats and my 2 tonne bronco over it, you could still put a 3 meter straight edge across at any point, and would be lucky so see 2 or 3 mm of light .... 5555
Paving bricks however are porous, so do go green if in shade and need constant cleaning, also weeds grow in them..... so this depends on the area in terms of how much sun it gets
Stamped concrete ... yuck, looks cheap and fake
