The time has finally come - Is this guy having a laugh

[seanandruby]

no flo you werent there m8 :p

[MatthewWakeman]

Yup

All looks good congratulations clay pavers are notoriously more difficult to lay than concrete.

regards
Matthew

Drivewaycompany.co.uk

[bobhughes]

Would it not have been possible to re-align the access cover with the pavers?

Bob

[lutonlagerlout]

you can normally get a bit of play on the covers bob,but i prefer not to have them aligned as they dont work blocks anyway,it looks better with 2 cuts either side of the line of the tray
cheers tony

[Mick Leek]

The concrete edgings unfortunatly will be staying.

I think i may have over specified on those a little, lets just say they wont be moving when the car runs over them and i used enough concrete when bedding them to build an house on ???

I tried to mess about with the manhole cover but it sits on a massive 6" thick concrete plinth about 6 feet long and 4 feet wide. Your guess is as good as mine as why so big? the chamber inside is no bigger than the size of the lid.

Unfortunatly that meant i had to mess quite a bit with levels in order to maintain the gradual fall away from the house and not have a section that was level because of the plinth beneath the pavers. (does that make sense?)

Anyway, its by no means perfect (to the pro standard) but it looks pretty good and it now means i can finish off the interior of my house and new extension.

Cheers again for all those who helped and Tony of course for providing a website with all the information and secrets that a lot of trades men would be reluctatnt to divuldge.

[Mick Leek]

I was sat there today looking at the kerb outside my drive and realised that although i originally dug out the drive some 8 years ago, I never got around to getting the kerb lowered.

So i guess you all know my next question How easy is it to lower the kerb ? Can you simply work the kerbs loose then wiggle them out like rotten teeth?

Unfortunatly when i was building my extension, all the lovely delivery drivers parked their shiny lorries on the path outside the drive and lowered their pads directly on the tarmac leaving nice square footprints. Some are nearly 2" down i kid you not.

I was planning on lowering the kerb and then cutting back the tarmac and laying new stuff up to the drive. Can i simply whack it down or does it need rolling ?

Cheers guys.

Mick

[Stuarty]

Im sure your meant to get a contractor to work with the public footpaths cos of council red tape, public liability etc etc. But theres countless amounts of folk who have just prized out the old kerbs, done a little cutting here and there on the old kerbs then concreted them back in. Ive seen folk using a wacker on tarmac / bitmac or whatever its properly called but ive never worked with it, so i cant tell you if thats right or wrong, im sure one of the other guys will advise on that

[lutonlagerlout]

shhh stuarty ,that very naughty
no mick you have to pay your local council the national debt of a small african country to come and do it for you
in luton i think it runs about £700 for a 2m drop
to think i used to do them on a saturday morning for £100
its all to do with the blame/claim culture we have now
cheers LLL

[Mick Leek]

So what you are saying is "Dont do it" getthe council in ?

Last time i asked them, they quoted £800.00 and they wouldnt lay new tarmac upto the new drive (around 5 feet)

Oh well, its been like that for 8 years, another 8 years should go pretty quickly.

[lutonlagerlout]

what i am saying is mick
"dont get caught doing it"
if your drive is usable why bother?
there is a road in luton that has a lot of chav families in it , and nearly every second house the husband or whoever has gone out with a lump hammer and smashed the corners off the kerbstones so they can drive on to their gardens,and yes i mean gardens ,not drives just plain old grass
hehe
LLL

[Dave_L]

Standard 5 drop is £750, fully finished.

Don't be tempted to do it yourself - there are a lot of eyes out there.......council do-gooders!

[Tony McC]

A council here in the north-west of Engerland has a policy of insisting that self-created unsanctioned crossovers are returned to the original condition by their DLO or chosen term contractor at the very full expense of the property owner. The cost is often 3 or 4 times what it would have cost to have the work done by an approved contractor in the first place, and they won't allow you to have a dropped crossing until the footpath has been fully reinstated.

They also have an aggressive policy against those homeowners that decide to pave over the service strip.

[Mick Leek]

Ok,

Cheers guy's. Message received and understood. I will save up and get a reputable (approved) contractor to do it.

Dave,

Out of interest, when you say £750 all done, would that inlude up to the new drive (about 6 or 7 feet) or just enough cut out to get the incline ?

Thanks all

[lutonlagerlout]

is this the longest thread ever?
i feel a mcwhirter coming on
lets hope they dont do the reheat /recyclething they did on mine mick,its crap and is falling to bits
LLL

[Dave_L]

Out of interest, when you say £750 all done, would that inlude up to the new drive (about 6 or 7 feet) or just enough cut out to get the incline ?

Thanks all

That figure would cover a standard width footpath crossing to the edge of your existing driveway.