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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

When considering the various forms of driveway you may choose to favour the simplest and most economical, which is gravel. In spite of their simplicity gravel driveways can be an extremely eye-catching alternative, particularly in rural settings. Gravel can be bought in a whole host of colours and sizes, so you should have no trouble locating one that looks great in your garden. A good sturdy layer of hardcore is essential for a gravel drive to be effective, as well as a firmly-bedded edging. The best quality gravel driveways result from putting down three or four layers of stones, with every layer tamped and rolled and left to settle before laying the next. Properly laid gravel driveways are obviously SuDS compliant, so you will not need planning permission no matter how big your driveway is.

Asphalt Driveways

An asphalt driveway, with its smooth, continuous appearance offers immediate curb appeal to any property in. When laid by an experienced company, an asphalt driveway will give you many years of reliable service with a bare minimum of maintenance. There are even porous asphalt solutions so that rain is allowed to soak away into a sub-grade reservoir, instead of running off into road drainage systems, which can be attributed to localised flood risks.

Asphalt driveways offer very good value for money and asphalt is a durable, strong material that's designed to tolerate the freezing and thawing effects of a typical winter. It is also the easiest driveway material to repair or remove because of the process by which it is manufactured. If you're worried about the environmental impact of your driveway, it's good to know that asphalt can be lifted and recycled for other uses.

Block Paved Driveways

Block-paving driveways are among the most favoured styles in right now, and scores of these have sprung up over the last few years. Forming a hard-wearing, durable driveway, hundreds of specially designed block paving bricks are butted together in eye-catching and sometimes elaborate designs that can be personalized to your own requirements. As soon as the blocks have been put in place and tamped down, the gaps are filled up with kiln-dried sand which is then brushed into the joints. It is preferable to have your block paving driveway sealed after four or five months with Thompson's sealant or similar. This is crucial to stop weed growth. Block paving can be laid in a lot of designs, including basket weave, stretcher bond, fan and herringbone.

SuDS Compliant Block Paving Driveways: Block paved driveways can even be made compliant with SuDS, by leaving bigger than standard spaces between the bricks, which are then filled with fine aggregate in place of the traditional kiln-dried sand.

Natural Stone Driveways

The attributes of natural stone means that it continually improves with age. Selecting natural stone for your driveway will give you an entire lifetime of use for any car or vehicle and will stay looking great from the first day until fifty years in the future. It can provide your garden with a driveway that, thanks to the distinctive shades and colours of each individual stone, is wholly bespoke to you. The natural stone gives a warm, soft look to any driveway, and is part of that all important curb appeal.

Driveways made from natural stone not only look amazing, but they're easy to maintain and less susceptible to damage than some driveway alternatives. The narrower joints between the stones means there is considerably less chance of unwanted weed growth, and the smooth surface is far easier to clean. A stone driveway installed by a professional company should be looked at as a smart investment which will improve the value of your property.

Driveway Cleaning

If you do not currently have a driveway in your garden, then obviously cleaning isn't going to be necessary, but this is definitely something that you'll have to think about later on. For lots of homeowners, it is not often a priority to maintain the cleanliness of their driveway. Nonetheless, from both an aesthetic and maintenance perspective, cleaning your driveway is essential, and this procedure ought to be done on a regular basis, not just now and then. With time, the structure of your driveway can be damaged by roots, weeds and other unwanted plant growth. An enlargement of existing driveway fractures or cracks can happen, and structural issues could develop if this growth isn't removed.

If dirt, weeds or stains appear on your driveway, getting rid of them as quickly as possible is recommended. However, the spring and summer season is when you're most likely to notice the growth of moss and weeds, you ought not wait till them to pressure wash your drive. Spillages from your car such as petrol, oil and brake fluid can ruin the look of your driveway. To avoid ugly discolouration of the surface, it's therefore important to remove them quickly.

If you are cleaning your own driveway, you'll require the use of a pressure washing device, and to accomplish it properly you'll also need some other tools and equipment, for example a bucket, a scraper, a broom, a wire brush and detergent. A specialist driveway cleaning service may be necessary if you don't have the right equipment, or are not certain about cleaning it yourself. You may even find that your driveway installers will offer this sort of service.

Tarmac Driveways

Tarmac is a very popular driveway surface because of its durability and strength. When laid professionally it requires very little maintenance, is weatherproof and looks great. A tarmac driveway will be able to cope with heavier vehicles, like trucks and camper vans, without dimpling or damage to the surface, and will look good for many years to come.

It offers fantastic value, and tarmac can be coloured to fit in with the surroundings or your home. Tarmac enables you to go beyond a dreary black surface and have it coloured to tie in with your property. It is possible for a competent driveway contractor to install a brand new tarmac driveway in one day. Tarmac is truly a decent material for just about any driveway, due to its strength, low maintenance properties and ease of installation.

Resin-Bound Driveways

Among the most flexible and attractive styles of driveway that are available at this time, resin driveways are becoming more and more popular and also comply with SuDS, if that is what you are in need of. Resin driveways come in an array of patterns and colours that can be customized to your precise specifications. For much less hassle and mess a new resin driveway can quickly be laid on top of a pre-existing asphalt or concrete surface. Resin-bound driveways are easy to clean, maintenance free, durable, permeable, and an effective substitute for block paving, concrete, gravel or tarmac. Generally coming with an extended warranty when installed by an experienced contractor, a resin-bound driveway should give you excellent service for many years to come. (Tags: Resin-Bonded Driveways, Resin-Bound Driveways, Resin Driveways).

Concrete Driveways

Well suited for driveways, and a much favoured material for many years, concrete has the advantage of being durable, strong and relatively maintenance-free. An automatic choice for many householders, concrete is less expensive than resin or block paving, but if installed properly is more durable and stronger. If you find concrete driveways to be somewhat drab and boring, it's quite possible to administer a patterned or imprinted surface finish to make them look like stones or pebbles.

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.

Your Home's Curb Appeal - How To Enhance It For Less

Have you heard of the term curb appeal before? This is talking about how your home looks from the sidewalk. When considering home improvement projects, this is always something to think about, especially if you're trying to sell your home. It is important that you appreciate the way that your home looks, which is why improving the curb appeal is something you ought to do anyway. To help you improve your home's curb appeal, we have written this article with some suggestions.

A great place to start is to paint a portion of your house, or the entire house; doing this can really catch the eye of people driving by. Some people have a deck that surrounds the house; if you do repaint the deck, you might consider changing the color. Shutters and window casings are also good candidates for a fresh coat of paint. Sometimes all you need is a detailed cleaning which may consist of picking up around the yard, and washing the windows to make everything look brand-new. Always remove mold and moss from the outside of your home as this will give the impression that no one cares for the house. Sometimes you can clean all of this up yourself. However, if it is extremely bad, always hire a professional to get the job done right.

It may be that you can improve your home's curb appeal by making some changes you didn't even think were necessary. Sometimes when you look at something every day for years, you don't even realize how it looks to others. Take a good look at your garage door, for example. Until it breaks, the majority of people do not consider replacing it. And yet, replacing a worn-out old one with a newer model would produce an absolute change. One other thing that can again and again be overlooked, is the mailbox. A new mailbox isn't expensive, but if your present one is old and rusty, you'll feel much better when you replace it.

One problem that many homeowners have, even renters, is that it is so much work to take care of a lawn; many people desire some kind of alternative. Anybody that has a lawn understands that it would be very beneficial to save all of that time and effort by replacing it with something that wasn't so high maintenance. To make your house look more interesting, you could certainly replace the grass was something that required less maintenance and looked much more interesting. An environmentally sustainable landscaping idea that you should consider is called xeriscaping. Regardless of your location in the world, xeriscaping is apropos for most areas across the globe.

If you're trying to sell your home, curb appeal is one home-improvement aspect that you should never forget about. After you read this, you may be inspired to impress family and friends by improving the curb appeal of your home using some of our suggestions. The bottom line is that once you improve the curb appeal of your house, people will know you really care about it.

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

Find Driveway Pavers in the UK Here

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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.

Driveways Locally: Through the use of our website block paved driveways have recently been installed in Temptin Avenue, Somnes Avenue, Southwalters, St Guibert Road, Silverthorn, Central Wall Cottages, Thompson Avenue, Champlain Avenue, Crescent Road, Corona Road, Suffolk Way, Thisselt Road, Croppenburg Walk, Delgada Road, Chichester Close, Dovervelt Road, Camperdown Road, Tongres Road, Church Parade, The Firs, Chalk Road, Sussex Way, Stella Maris Close, Taranto Road, Central Wall, Devon Way, The Fielders and other areas of the UK. These places recently saw activity by those specialising in driveways. Business and home owners received competent and top notch driveway services on each occasion.

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