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Your next step, if you do elect to forge ahead with installing a driveway will be make a choice about what type of driveway is going to be most suitable for your circumstances. There are many different types of driveway available, as I'm sure you will be aware, but these may not all be right for you. If you're on a tight spending budget you could be to some degree limited in your choices. The configuration and dimensions of your property's garden may also affect your final decision.

You might say "a driveway is just a driveway", however that simply isn't true, given that there are many different designs and types of driveway, and if you were to take a walk around your town, you will see what I mean. You should see shingle driveways, grass driveways, block paved driveways, tarmac driveways, resin bound driveways, asphalt driveways, concrete driveways, cobbled driveways, patterned concrete driveways and natural stone driveways, in various forms, however this will give you a perception of all the potential alternatives.

What Type of Driveway is Best? Before deciding what type of driveway is right for your property, there are a few things that you will have to take into account. A few details that you would be sensible to think about - 1. Local authority planning permission - is planning permission needed for your driveway? 2. How the land lies - is the area level or sloped? 3. How successfully does your garden drain - does water collect where you're wanting to build your driveway?

Although you may think that you can just stick a driveway anywhere you like on your land, this is not automatically true. The legislation that pertain to driveways aren't just laid down by the local authority, but are in reality enforced by government law. However, at this moment in time, these laws only affect driveways being laid in front gardens. This legislation, which is known as the Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) has been in force since October 2008, when it was first brought in.

If you are aiming to build a driveway having an area of more than 5m² and it's in your front garden, you are going to be affected by these SuDS legislation. You won't have to stress about this if you build your driveway from a porous (permeable) substance like shingle, permeable concrete block, porous asphalt, monoblock (grass) or resin, which will allow the water to pass through and naturally drain away. If you believe that the SuDS legislation will affect your planned driveway in the UK, you can see detailed information here - Sustainable Drainage Systems

Naturally it is quite feasible for you to build your own driveway in the UK, if you are fairly good at do-it-yourself and are not fazed by a touch of hard work. However no-one should think of this as an easy process, as there is a great deal of preparation work involved apart from actually laying the driveway, including doing waste removal, lugging materials and excavating. If you've got any concerns about whether you would be able to tackle a project such as this, it might be a good idea to hire an experienced driveway specialist.

With this kind of project, you've got to be wary about exactly who you pick, seeing as you clearly need somebody who knows precisely what they are up to. There are plenty of cowboys and rogue traders out there who will soon pocket your cash and do a lousy job. It's worth shelling out a bit more money to get a proper job done, instead of taking a risk with a substandard worker just to save yourself a couple of quid. Driveway and patio contractors who have been offering their services in and around the UK for a number of years would be the smartest choice.

When assessing these paving contractors, you should at the very least ask for some references from satisfied clientele, ask what warranties they offer on their workmanship, ascertain how long they've been in business, check that they have got insurance protection, ask if they are a member of a trade association such as ANTSCA (the surfacing trade association) and ask to look at a portfolio of past projects.

This doesn't have to be an inquisition, but asking these germane questions should give you an inkling of the sort of individual that you are going to be dealing with. If they are relaxed about answering all of these questions, you can assume that they are fairly genuine. You can deem that they're hiding something or being less than honest if they're confrontational or hesitant when asked such questions. If that occurs you would be wise to avoid them like the plague and try another tradesman.

If you are wary and pick a really good driveway paver, they will help you make all the most important decisions with regards to your project, including the recommended driveway technique, the favoured location and the best materials. And that is not the end of it, because they'll also take care of all the design, preparation and planning that's required for your new driveway installation to go like clockwork.

Gravel Driveways

The least expensive and easiest of all the driveway styles is the ubiquitous gravel driveway. Despite their simplicity gravel driveways can be an extremely eye-catching alternative, particularly in a rural setting. You should not have any problem locating a kind of gravel that looks great in your garden, given that there are an array of sizes and shades on the market. A sturdy base layer of hardcore is required for a gravel drive to be effective, coupled with a well-bedded edging. If you want to end up with a really top quality gravel driveway, you should ensure that 3 or 4 separate layers are put down, with each and every one individually tamped and rolled and left to settle for a day before the next is laid. Regardless of what size your driveway is, or whether it is in your front or back garden, if it's constructed from gravel it will not require planning permission, as it will automatically be SuDS compliant.

Asphalt Driveways

Any house in will benefit from the curb appeal of the smooth, uninterrupted appearance of a newly installed asphalt driveway. When put in by a competent contractor, an asphalt driveway will give you years of good use with very little maintenance. In high flood risk locations it may be required to have a permeable driveway, and there is an asphalt type, with sub-base for rainwater drainage, which stops excess water from filling up road drains.

Asphalt driveways are very smartly designed to successfully hold up to anything that typical winters can throw at them, and deliver exceptional value for money. Asphalt is also the simplest driveway material to repair or remove due to the process by which it is manufactured. If you're concerned about the ecological impact of your driveway, it's good to know that asphalt can be taken out and recycled for other uses.

Block Paving Driveways

Over the last few years scores of driveways in have appeared built with the block-paving technique. Forming attractive and elaborate patterns, hundreds of purpose-made block paving bricks are butted together to create a hard wearing and durable driveway. After the blocks have been put in place, they are firmly tamped down, and kiln-dried sand is brushed into the exposed joints. After 5 or 6 months a good idea is to get your block-paved driveway sealed with a high quality sealant (such as Everbuild), this should help to stop weed growth. Block paving can be laid in numerous designs, including stretcher bond, herringbone, basketweave and fan.

SuDS Compliant Block Paving Driveways: Block paving driveways can even be made SuDS compliant, by simply leaving bigger than normal gaps between the blocks, which can then be packed with very fine aggregate rather than the traditional kiln-dried sand. (Tags: Block Paving Driveway, Block Paved Driveway, Block Paving).

Natural Stone Driveways

The attributes of natural stone means it continually improves with age. The dense and compact material looks impressive on any driveway and will provide a lifetime of use for any motor vehicles you may own. It provides your home with a driveway that, due to the different tones and colours of each individual stone, is entirely bespoke to you. The natural stone gives a warm, soft edge to any driveway, and adds to that all important WOW factor.

Natural stone driveways not only look amazing, but they're virtually maintenance-free and less at risk of damage than paved alternatives. The narrower joints in between the stones means there is less likelihood of unwanted weed growth, and the smooth, hard surface is far easier to clean. A stone driveway from a professional contractor should be seen as a good investment that will increase the value of your house.

Driveway Cleaning

If you're about to upgrade an existing driveway since your current one is looking shabby, it will be substantially less costly to clean it rather than rebuild it. Maintaining the cleanliness of a driveway is not a top priority for a lot of householders. Nonetheless, for reasons of both maintenance and appearance, cleaning a driveway on a fairly regular basis is really important. With time, your driveway's structure can be weakened by weeds, roots and other destructive plant growth. If there are existing cracks and fractures, these can be widened which might eventually lead to structural issues.

If stains, weed growth or dirt show up on your driveway, eliminating them as quickly as possible is advisable. It is not a good idea to wait around for the springtime or summer to arrive to jet wash your drive, even though that is the time when you are most likely to notice the appearance of weeds and moss. The appeal of your drive can be really spoilt by diesel, oil and brake fluid spills from your vehicle. Therefore it is vital to quickly clean them off to prevent your driveway's surface being stained too badly.

Together with a power washing machine, you'll also need a bucket, a scraper, a broom, a wire brush and detergent, and also some other tools if you wish to clean your driveway effectively. If you aren't confident in cleaning it yourself, or don't have the proper gear, you should ask your driveway company if they're willing to do this, or call in a specialist driveway cleaning service.

Tarmac Driveways

Tarmac is a popular driveway surface on account of its strength and durability. When laid by a professional driveway company it looks amazing, doesn't need much maintenance and offers excellent weather resistant properties. Tarmac's strength and durability means it can contend with heavier vehicles, like vans and motor-homes, without causing any significant damage to the surface.

It offers excellent value for money, and tarmac can be coloured to match the surroundings or your requirements. Tarmac enables you to move away from a conventional black coloured surface and colour it to tie in with your property. It is possible for a competent driveway company to put in a brand new tarmac drive in less than a day. Many property owners select tarmac over other driveway materials due to its fast installation, low maintenance qualities, surface finish and strength.

Resin-Bound Driveways

There's very little doubt that these days resin or resin-bound driveways have become one of the most favoured kinds of driveway. The fact that they're also SuDS compliant plainly contributes to their attraction. Available in a host of colours and designs, resin driveways can be tailor-made to your exact specifications, and installed to complement any concept or theme. For much less mess and hassle a new resin driveway could be easily laid on top of an existing concrete or asphalt surface. Resin-bound driveways are easy to clean, maintenance free, durable, permeable, and an awesome alternative to concrete, block paving, gravel or asphalt. Typically coming with an extended warranty when laid by a trusted installer, a resin driveway should give excellent service for years to come. (Tags: Resin Driveways, Resin-Bound Driveways, Resin-Bonded Driveways).

Concrete Driveways

A very popular material for driveways, concrete is hard wearing, strong and doesn't need much maintenance. With regards to the cost, concrete is about middling for driveway construction, being more expensive than asphalt or gravel, but less expensive than resin or block paving. Nearly everybody would agree that concrete driveways in general are somewhat drab and boring. Yet this does not have to be a problem, seeing that it's perfectly possible to finish them off with a stamped or patterned design.

Driveway Tasks

If you pick your driveway company carefully they will have the skills necessary to help with painted driveways, tar driveways, the maintenance of gravel driveways, coloured tarmac driveways, monoblock driveway installations in the UK, the design of asphalt driveways, permeable driveway installations, the repair of aggregate driveways, bonded gravel driveways, resin driveway installations, driveways with pavers, paving a driveway, cheap driveway ideas, commercial driveway installation, driveway resurfacing, asphalt driveway recycling, driveway cleaning, driveway installation estimates, driveway drainage, driveway replacement, grass driveway installation, driveway culverts, the construction of flagstone driveways, the repair of concrete driveways, driveway markers, gated driveways, granite block driveways, pebble driveways, domestic driveway installations, stone resin driveways and any one of innumerable additional driveway related services in the UK. Listed are just a handful of the duties that are conducted by people specialising in driveways. Driveway providers will be happy to inform you of their whole range of services

More Advice and Guidance

By taking a look at YouTube videos you are able to discover how to put in a resin bound driveway. Social media is clearly the place where the majority of homeowners in the UK head these days when they are searching for ideas and images for products and services. If that is what you love to do and you're presently searching for information on driveway installation check this out. You should pay a visit to Rated People or the government backed Trustmark website, if you want to conduct a search for licensed local driveway contractors in the UK. The dedicated Wikipedia "driveways" page is the place to head over to for details of the purposes of driveways, the different sorts of driveways, the local legislation regarding driveways and the materials used for driveways. To read a useful article about how to choose a driveway check this out.

Driveway Questions

Over the last few weeks I have been looking through the questions homeowners in the UK ask regarding driveways. A number of our visitors have submitted justifiable questions that are relevant to this article. The ones I picked out were, "Where can I buy driveway gravel?" "When should you seal your driveway?" "Should a concrete driveway have rebar?" "How do driveway drains work?" "What happens if driveway sealer freezes?" "How much does the average driveway cost?" I hope nearly all of those questions have been dealt with on this page, and if some remain unanswered a driveway "Q&A" feature will be introduced in the near future. My gratitude goes out to the following homeowners in the UK for making the effort to pose their excellent questions; Kaiden Clarkson, Sarah Crawford, Tony Mcdonald and Jane Mcgrady. It was also fantastic to get offerings from Noah Weston in Newlands, Aaliyah Cowell in Hadleigh and Isaac Friend in Fobbing.

Skip Hire for Driveways

When you're carrying out a driveway installation project in the UK, or any other kind of home or garden revamp, it's likely that a certain volume of rubbish and waste will be generated that can't be disposed of in your regular household wheelie bins. Actually, in most regions, construction or garden materials must be disposed of in a controlled and eco-friendly way, in accordance with local authority legislation. Consequently if you are to stay safely within the law, you'll have to transport your waste materials to a recognised disposal and recycling site, generally a council tip. If you do not want to be carting waste materials back and forth to your nearby Domestic Recycling Centre, it may be better to look for skip hire in your area.

By using an established skip hire contractor, you'll be given assurances that all of your waste will be driven to an authorised site, and will be disposed of correctly and safely. Even so, it's crucial to establish the form of waste materials that will be generated by the driveway project, and you can go through this with your chosen contractor and the skip hire provider concerned. If there's a chance that asbestos containing materials might be involved, the skip hire company will need to divide the dangerous waste into a totally separate disposal system for health and safety reasons. Hazardous waste is best left to the professionals, and strict regulations cover it's safe disposal. To make sure all guidelines and regulations are addressed appropriately, both your driveway installer and the skip hire firm will work together.

The perfect solution is if you happen to have a space when a skip can be sited on your garden or drive. On the reverse side of the coin, if you do not have a suitable area, and you park your vehicle on the main road, you might need to seek the help of your neighbours, and see whether they can leave a space for your skip someplace close to the work area. A skip which is placed on a driveway or private land doesn't need a permit, but if it has to go on a public highway in the UK it will definitely need a temporary local authority skip permit, get hold of them to see whether you need one. This will guarantee there are no problems with regards to siting your skip.

Skip hire providers offer skips of all shapes and sizes, and you can rent anything from skip bags and mini-skips right up to builders skips and gigantic roll-on roll-off monstrosities. To hire a skip for your project in the UK, CLICK HERE for a quote.

Home Improvement Tips to Create More Curb Appeal

Ways abound where you can increase your residence landscape when consideration is given. Thinking it just pertains to superficial problems is a mistake that a number of homeowners make. Yet, if you want to sell your home, or even if you just want to make it more attractive and inviting, these apparently minor details can be very significant. It proposes that you are a caring and an interested owner.

Something that is extremely crucial when you are talking about curb appeal is the doorway of your residence. This includes your front door, front porch and the pathway leading up to your door. A simple way to enhance the way your house looks in the front is to put in a new front door. Based upon the appearance of your abode, there are numerous possibilities, vintage and contemporary doors included. Before anything else, this is often what probable buyers or guests will see, hence this is something you will hope will make the greatest impression. An interesting and attractive knocker or buzzer can also be a nice ornament. Aside from your door, consider elements such as the address or name if it's attached to the front of your home. These often look worn out and replacing them isn't expensive but can make a big difference.

People that drive by should see a home that is joyful and cozy, something that you should make a priority as you improve your curb appeal. How you do this will depend on your tastes, but there's no need to spend a lot of money or go to extremes. Your front porch should definitely have a few colorful flowers, as well as some potted plants to make it look all-natural. Choose a few specific locations (windowsills, front porch, etc.) that you think would benefit from adding foliage to the front of your home. Furniture on the lawn is also something that catches the eye, something like wrought iron lawn furniture will definitely do the trick. People that add lawn decorations typically overdo it, so keep that in mind as you plan your front lawn.

Another thing you can do is to improve the walkway that leads up to your front door from the street. You might change your walkway a little bit by paving it replacing perhaps the cement that was there - it is totally up to you. Similarly, a new driveway will impress everyone who drive up to your home. A sense of security is something that you should impart upon your driveway. You should also make it visually appealing. By improving the outside, the surrounding area adjacent to the driveway, even if it is full of potholes from years of use, it will look better than it did before. And when visitors come, just make them feel at home especially when they arrive in the driveway.

Anyone that wants to add curb appeal to their property should be able to after reading this article. This is not a home improvement project - you are simply making your house look better by doing a couple different things. Curb appeal for your home is as simple as tidying up a few things from your backyard to your front door - whatever you do is up to you!

Doing a Search Online

It is considerably simpler to look for a tradesman or service right now than it was in the past, given that we've got the advantage of technology and can just do a search on the web. Immediate and pertinent results are the reward of searching with Bing, Google or Yahoo, which were created for this exact role. One drawback can be that the first page results displayed by the major search engines might not be exactly the ones you were after. Typing in "UK driveways", "driveways in the UK", "driveway installers near me" or "driveways" will normally be the process to use when looking for a driveway specialist in the UK. You need to know that the 4 top results are often PPC advertisements (which may or may not be on-topic), and lots of the remaining page one listings will likely be from large trade portals like Checkatrade, My Hammer, Rated People, My Builder, TrustaTrader or Bark or web directories such as Gumtree, Yelp, Scoot or Yell. Odd job men usually don't have substantial budgets to push their websites to the uppermost rankings, so you're liable to find these out-of-the-way lower down the listings perhaps on the second or third pages. Approved tradesmen websites like Rated People or Checkatrade are still handy though, and you will be able to make full use of their informative services to examine customers appraisals, obtain free quotes and read through reviews, since there are local driveway pavers on there who do not even have a website.

Driveway Installer Services

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More Tradespeople: Whilst you may just be looking for someone who can do driveway installation in the UK, you can also find garden clearance in the UK, a builder in the UK, a landscape gardener in the UK, a bricklayer in the UK, SKIP HIRE in the UK, a decking specialist in the UK, a garden designer in the UK, pressure washing in the UK, a fencing contractor in the UK, a gardener in the UK, an electrician in the UK, a carpenter in the UK, driveway cleaning in the UK, a tiler in the UK, a lawn care specialist in the UK, patio laying in the UK, waste removal in the UK, property extension in the UK.

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