Currently my drive is a lovely concrete piece of design. I really need to get another area of off street parking down as soon as possible. Ideally the whole lot would come up and be block paved and that is the long term plan but for the moment all I want to do it pave off an area of grass.
Currently it looks like this:
The current drive is 7.6m x 2.5m and the area of grass that we were thinking of paving is 2.7m x 6.7m. This would leave a strip of grass / boarder around 1.4m wide to the left of the picture.
The land slopes quite steeply to the right and away from the house.
I have a few questions:
1. Would it be advisable to add some form of drainage to the new area?
2. Is 5.2m considered wide enough for a double drive and be able to walk up between the cars? It seems to be ok but I wondered if there was a rule of thumb measurement thats normally adhered to?
3. Would something like tombermore tegular look out of place against the "LBC tudor" brickwork of the walls of the house? Which is something like this:
Or would I be better off sticking to something like driveline 50 brindle with a charcoal boarder? I realise its my choice at the end of the day but a bit of advice is always handy.
4. The reason for not ripping up the concrete drive is that some time next year it will have skips on it and holes dug it in by the gas people. Whats the chance of being able to get blocks to match the area that I'm doing now next year? Or am I better off doing a buy for blocks for the whole area now?
q1) yes drainage is advisable.
q2) min width 2.4 unless you need wheelchair access then its 3.5.
q3 your choice
q4)i would buy now but remember permeable paving may be in force by next year?
Not sure about the drainage for now sean, it looks like it slopes towards the street?
I know there will be a few groans but I'd put in a proper sub-base with the intention of future paving and put 2-3 tonnes of shingle down for now. That way it's cheap, the blocks won't weather, and when you're ready to do the full driveway you just need to skip the £80-£120 worth of shingle.
As for permeable paving, it's still so confused that I'm following existing practices until instructed otherwise...
Thanks for the replies guys. It does slope towards the street and off to the right of the picture so if I wash my car at the moment it goes over next doors drive... Worth adding a linear drain where I meet the pavement and neighbours drive?
I've spoken to the planning dept re the permeable paving and they say it will be in force on the 1st of oct but they can't give me any details of what they would or wouldn't class as acceptable or what they would class as the works being under way. Basically the guy said it was a bit of a joke.
If I did fill with shingle over a proper sub base would I end up with a load of it being washed out onto the street?
those bricks look like LBC heathers or sandfaced to me?
tudors have loads of little dimples on them
any red/brindle paving will look ok with these bricks
LLL
Personally I wouldn't go to the bother and expense of installing any SW drainage.
5.2m wide driveway for two vehicles? A standard estate parking bay is 2.4M wide * 4.8M long, so your dimesion will work, but you won't have *ample* room. Better to go a little more if space allows.
Dig it out and do the job properly, then it's done for the future. I like brindles with charcoal soldier courses.
RW Gale Ltd - Civils & Surfacing Contractors based in Somerset
