The Brew Cabin

Hi,

First off, I have to thank you for such a well presented and informative site. It's helped us no end with sorting out solutions for our very problematical driveway and front garden.

Our house is on the side of a hill, above the road by about 15ft. Consequently the driveway is very steep - too steep for block paving, so it's going to be concreted. The ground also slopes from left to right. Where the ground becomes less steep, the concrete will stop and we'll block pave the majority of the garden, apart from an area in front of the house measuring around 5 m x 6m. This is the most level part of the garden, with only a slight slope and we plan to gravel it.

So, after that long-winded explanation(!), the question I have is how to drain the gravel section? It will be 'enclosed' on one side by the house and on the other three sides by block paving kerbstones. What I wish to avoid is a big puddle of water gathering under the lower corner of the gravel area, where it meets the block paved area.

Will water just permeate across the whole area and gradually drain away or should we install some drainage system? The ground soil is almost solid chalk.

I hope that's not too rambling and vague!!

Cheers

nic :)

Firstly, what makes you think your driveway is too steep for Block Paving? There are a couple of tricks that are used when using block paving on steeply sloping areas (tricks that I keep meaning to illustrate on the site but bnever seem to find the time!) and it's certainly easier to block pave a slope than to lay concrete, which has an uncontrollable desire to run to the bottom of the slope!

Anyway, that's by the by, and your main concern is draining the enclosed gravel area. Well, you;ll be releived to know that it's actually quite simple - lay a perforated pipe beneath the gravel, wrapped in a piece of membrane as shown in the [url=http://www,pavingexpert.com/drain03.htm]Land Dranage[/url] pages, and then connect that to a standard pipeline that runs beneath the neew driveway to siome suitable outfall point where it can trickle out and joint the rest of the surface water running down the road.

Because this drain will actually run beneath a trafficked pavement, I'd strongly suggest using a rigid pipe such as clayware, rather than a flexible pipe which would be prone to collapse under the loading, unless you were happy enough to dig down about 750mm to give it adequate cover. If you prefer to use plastciware, then, for the section of non-perforated pipe beneath the diveway, encase it in concrete to prevent it deforming, leading to settlement of your lovely new pblock paving.