Few things can cause householders to reconsider their driveway choices more than winter. The coldest season of the year can bring not just low temperatures, but wet, icy and even snowy conditions that can often contribute to damaging the driveway.

That may mean a lot of people are planning to install a new driveway by the time spring comes around. But another option is to act now and not wait for winter to take its toll. In particular, this can be a good time to lay resin driveways, which offer a lot of qualities that others do not.

Firstly, let us consider some of the problems traditional driveways can suffer. One of them is that they can get flooded with water in winter storms, made worse by the fact that there is no warm sun to follow to evaporate it, unlike in summer.

There is an option to install a driveway that is porous and can drain water into the soil below, although this is not always an ideal option in areas with a lot of clay in the soil, which is true of much of the Manchester area.

In the meantime, harder surfaces that become uneven in places can suffer especially badly, as puddles can form. Gravel driveways can also be prone to this as trenches gouged by car wheels or uneven distribution can create depressions for water to pool in.

While water will simply slide off a bonded resin driveway – meaning you need good drainage on either side of it – bound resin is more permeable, offering a good way of draining water to the ground below, provided the soil will hold it well (see the point about clay above).  

Many driveway surfaces, such as concrete or asphalt, can only be fitted on warm, dry days so that the material can set, but resin surfaces can be installed in cold weather.

However, it does need light to cure, so it is worth noting that it will set more slowly on a cold day than a warm one, while it is trickier to spread. That said, you don’t need to wait for winter to arrive; while it is still autumn there may be some unusually mild days. Perhaps there is something to be said for climate change after all.

Moreover, the temperature-resistance of resin is one of its great attributes; as a form of plastic, it cannot crack in winter and will not suffer the effects of freeze-thaw, where water gets in cracks, freezes and then expands as ice, widening them and accelerating the breakup of the surface.

This quality is something that may be particularly valuable in a colder winter, when there will be more snow and ice about and de-icing the driveway could be more of a challenge as several inches of the white stuff cascades down over the course of a night.

Resin driveways are not indestructible and you will still need to care for it in winter, for instance by removing snow and ice carefully without scratching or gouging the surface. But, overall, it is a material that can give you a lot more control over the consequences of wet weather and protection against freezing conditions than traditional surfaces.