# looking at options for replacing my driveway



## turbosnoop (Apr 14, 2015)

Completely unexperienced with replacing driveways here. However we are looking at options for replacing the existing tamac drive and most (to all) of the lawn at its side.

I asked a guy to come round & quote me for retarmacing 95% of the lawn and drive. Currently our drive runs downhill to a 3x4m area which is not tarmacced, its just gravel. This would (ideally) be tarmacced. I asked the guy about drainage and he said he would put a drain/gulley in to run into the drain that serves the house guttering when replacing the gravel with tarmac. However isn't draining your driveway into mains drains a planning permission job? 

I've read lots online about 2008 regs, that state water should be contained within the property etc but half the time someone round here has a replacement drive,it looks to me as if it would drain to the footpath/street, and I can't see any evidence of soak always etc. Are contractors using a lot of permiable block paving/tarmac these days or do people generally plough on and disregard /not be aware of 2008 regs?

I get the feeling Joe blogs would have a nice drive by being ignorant about regs, and I would have something that satisfy the regs but either A doesn't look as nice or B costs a lot more. But maybe I'm jumping the gun.

If anybody has any pointers for dealing with replacing your driveway I'd be happy to hear them. Thanks


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## WHIZZER (Oct 25, 2005)

House Gutterings normally go to Soak aways


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## ollienoclue (Jan 30, 2017)

If the drive is already partly tarmac, can anyone object to you replacing and sorting the remainder? I think I would get it done and plead ignorance. Any rain will run off into the road and into the drain anyway?

What sort of area are we talking about? Unless it is a large area you are hardly going to be sending a torrent of water into the street?

I think what you say about the regulations about not letting water into the public highway are probably entirely correct, but in practical terms are not-enforced because it happens millions of times across the country?

Having water escape from a company car park etc, they might take a different view?


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## dholdi (Oct 1, 2008)

The logic behind the Regs is that the majority of surface water that goes down the drains ends up at the treatment works and therefore gets treated which is an unnecessary cost.
The majority of surface water doesn't need treating and can soakaway naturally.


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## Tricky Red (Mar 3, 2007)

We chose to have permeable tarmac and everything flows through to the substrate. 

It is very good for cleaning the car on too.


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## c87reed (Dec 9, 2015)

I do like the idea of stuff that is permeable, and would consider the block that allow grass to grow through for just occasional extra parking, it goes a long way to prevent flooding.


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## MDC250 (Jan 4, 2014)

From what I understand anything over 5m squared needs planning permission...but as you've said who has heard of anybody being fined or injunctions applied?

https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/45/paving_your_front_garden


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## dholdi (Oct 1, 2008)

Many garden paths will be more than 5m2, never mind drives.


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## turbosnoop (Apr 14, 2015)

Tricky Red said:


> We chose to have permeable tarmac and everything flows through to the substrate.
> 
> It is very good for cleaning the car on too.


Was this much more expensive than traditional tarmac do you know?

As an estimate, the existing drive is about 50 m2, and the lawn about 45m2. My issue would not be with pleading ignorant but the thought that I could try to sell the house one day and find the issue is picked up. However at the same time I would think the vast majority of recently laid drives probably don't (perfectly) satisfy the regs.

The idea of a gridded gulley at the bottom of the drive near the house directing water down the roof rain water drain ,(the drive slopes down towards the house ,not street) sounds great for washing the car, but could it get picked up on a survey if I sell the house, as its supposed to need planning permission. I'm guessing most people don't research about regs or just plough on anyway


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## Darlofan (Nov 24, 2010)

Just get it tarmacced. As said any run off will go to nearest road gully. Any drains on your property that are just from your house are yours and ok to do what you want. Any that are shared are property of water supplier and you need permission to touch them. Surprising shared drains too, we've just had an extension built and I found out neighbours from either side all use the drains under our drive!! PITA to sort out!!


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## dholdi (Oct 1, 2008)

turbosnoop said:


> Was this much more expensive than traditional tarmac do you know?


I'm not sure about tarmac as I didn't research this when we did ours.
We wanted block paving, the permeable block paving was about twice the cost.
The blocks themselves had much larger spacer lugs to allow a pea gravel type infill between rather than sand.
The bulk of the cost would have been in the sub layers as they have to be constructed from different grades of materials to normal paving.
This site is a mine of useful information - http://www.pavingexpert.com/blocks.htm


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## Nanoman (Jan 17, 2009)

Some poor advice on here. I’m familiar with Scottish regs but not English. Check out permitted development guidance. IIRC even replacing a previous hard-paved driveway needs to be done to new regs. There’s good reasons for the regs when you think about it. Putting a soak away in isn’t difficult or expensive and should keep you within the right regs. Just dig a big hole and fill it with pea gravel and divert the water in there. Won’t take long. Will cost about £50. 


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## Tricky Red (Mar 3, 2007)

turbosnoop said:


> Was this much more expensive than traditional tarmac do you know?
> 
> As an estimate, the existing drive is about 50 m2, and the lawn about 45m2. My issue would not be with pleading ignorant but the thought that I could try to sell the house one day and find the issue is picked up. However at the same time I would think the vast majority of recently laid drives probably don't (perfectly) satisfy the regs.
> 
> The idea of a gridded gulley at the bottom of the drive near the house directing water down the roof rain water drain ,(the drive slopes down towards the house ,not street) sounds great for washing the car, but could it get picked up on a survey if I sell the house, as its supposed to need planning permission. I'm guessing most people don't research about regs or just plough on anyway


Around 30% more expensive IIRC, and the substrate needs to be permeable too. This was our extended driveway finished. The colour has now faded a little to a more grey finish and Virgin very kindly dug up the pavement which has soured the finish a little.


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## stealthwolf (Sep 24, 2008)

Strictly speaking, any rainfall on your driveway is your responsibility. Either you need something like 25% area of driveway as grass, pea shingle etc or you need a soakaway. 

It might be worth reading about what your council does. Ours chased an elderly for a driveway that had no form of drainage. She was fined because she hadn't applied for planning permission, something which she probably wasn't aware of. This was about 10 years ago and only came up because I was researching about driveways.

We've had our driveway done recently. The neighbour has red block paving and whilst it looked good when newish (as far as we can tell according to google earth), it looks horrendous now - faded, weeds growing etc. We had a look round at other houses nearby who had their driveway done and black tarmac (lined with contrasting pavers) looked smarter.

We went for black tarmac with natural concrete brick paver surround. We also had ACO drains installed at the back of the driveway as the slight natural slope was in that direction. I've seen ACO drains installed at the front of the driveway, at the back of the driveway and even both.

Paid around £55 per square metre.


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## staffordian (May 2, 2012)

Suprised no-one has yet mentioned the Paving Expert website. All sorts of detail there, but this page gives info about SUDS (sustainable drainage systems)...

http://www.pavingexpert.com/drain14.htm


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## stealthwolf (Sep 24, 2008)

staffordian said:


> Suprised no-one has yet mentioned the Paving Expert website.


See post # 11


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## staffordian (May 2, 2012)

stealthwolf said:


> See post # 11


Doh, how did I miss that


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## turbosnoop (Apr 14, 2015)

stealthwolf said:


> Strictly speaking, any rainfall on your driveway is your responsibility. Either you need something like 25% area of driveway as grass, pea shingle etc or you need a soakaway.
> 
> It might be worth reading about what your council does. Ours chased an elderly for a driveway that had no form of drainage. She was fined because she hadn't applied for planning permission, something which she probably wasn't aware of. This was about 10 years ago and only came up because I was researching about driveways.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the advice. Do your drains run into the surface water drains? This is what a local driveway contractor told me he would do, but as far as I can tell it would need planning permission.
We are looking at tarmac with a block border too. Lived at a house before with block paving, it was fairly oldish, but weeds would often sprout in the joints. Don't fancy that


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## staffordian (May 2, 2012)

We had a new drive a couple of years ago and I had concerns about compliance with the new regs because our drive has a pronounced slope towards the road.

The general feeling I got from reading what I could and from talking to the contractors we used was that if a permeable surface was not used then a soakaway must be provided. However the regs seem silent on the specifics of a soakaway.

As we are on heavy clay, it's probably somewhat academic anyway, so we did little more than go through the motions. We installed a channel grating across the bottom of the drive which fed into a token soakaway.

It takes a little water but obviously fills quickly and the water then runs across the footpath into the road, where it runs into the gullies in the road. Even a deep soakaway would end up simply being a hole full of water because of the impermeability of the subsoil, so trying to create one was pointless.

As far as I can see, we were one of very few in the area to even attempt to comply with the regs; many others have used block paving, slabs or normal tarmac without any form of drainage, and as far as I can tell, no-one has ever been pulled up for it.


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## stealthwolf (Sep 24, 2008)

turbosnoop said:


> Thanks for the advice. Do your drains run into the surface water drains? This is what a local driveway contractor told me he would do, but as far as I can tell it would need planning permission.
> We are looking at tarmac with a block border too. Lived at a house before with block paving, it was fairly oldish, but weeds would often sprout in the joints. Don't fancy that


Soakaway IIRC. There was also the option of tying it in to the same drain as the gutters. Try and have a look at driveways they've done. They should happily show examples.

Weeds will sprout anywhere the seeds can germinate. It doesn't necessarily grow _through_ gaps in block paving. They can sit in the crevice and grow from there. You could easily get moss etc on tarmac too.


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## baxlin (Oct 8, 2007)

We considered tarmac, but as the driveway is the only place I can work on my car, I was worried about jacks/ramps etc sinking into it.


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## turbosnoop (Apr 14, 2015)

staffordian said:


> We had a new drive a couple of years ago and I had concerns about compliance with the new regs because our drive has a pronounced slope towards the road.
> 
> The general feeling I got from reading what I could and from talking to the contractors we used was that if a permeable surface was not used then a soakaway must be provided. However the regs seem silent on the specifics of a soakaway.
> 
> ...


We too are on heavy clay. Horrible stuff isn't it. Whereas your drive slopes down to the road, mines the opposite, down to the house. I like the idea of a token soak away. Unfortunately I can't overflow water into the road. 
Nobody round herre seems to be following the regs. I think they just tell a paving company what they want. A certain popular paving company here doesn't seem to care about regs, so if they don't tell the customer they aren't following the regs, they perhaps aren't aware


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## turbosnoop (Apr 14, 2015)

stealthwolf said:


> Soakaway IIRC. There was also the option of tying it in to the same drain as the gutters. Try and have a look at driveways they've done. They should happily show examples.
> 
> Weeds will sprout anywhere the seeds can germinate. It doesn't necessarily grow _through_ gaps in block paving. They can sit in the crevice and grow from there. You could easily get moss etc on tarmac too.


The guy who was round here the other day was from a very popular local company. They seem to just do what they want and disregard regs. There work does look good I have to say, but I don't think they are very professional. Maybe they will rebrand themselves in a few years time


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## Nanoman (Jan 17, 2009)

If you’ve got heavy clay the only option is to dig through it. Both times I’ve done it I’ve had to go around 75cm-100cm deep but under heavy clay there was bone dry soil which just soaked the water right up. It might be worth digging a small test hole by hand to see how deep your clay goes to see if you can make something that will actually allow the water to flow away. 

I now soak 150m^2 of West of scotland ****ty wet weather into a soak away that took half a day to construct. 


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## snapsnap (Jul 18, 2008)

Basically..

+ You might need planning - check with your council

+ You cannot let water flow off your drive onto the highway

+ If the runoff can be diverted into your existing surface water drainage system, it is likey to be the easiest option. 

+ You might be able to connect straight into your pipework, but check with the water board what is 'your' pipework. Typically your pipework serves your property only.

+ A soakaway might be an option, as will a SUDS type arrangement with porus block paving or the like, but TBH can be a PITA and also more expensive than utilising existing drainage system, especially for a driveway.

HTH


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## snapsnap (Jul 18, 2008)

Also, I would not trust any 3rd party to adhere to the regs. As mentioned elsewhere, they seem to do what they want.

If THEY ignore the regs..they council will come after YOU!


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