Driveways and patios in Alderholt
Block paving, resin, tarmac and stone patios in Alderholt, dug out properly and drained where the ground is wet. Free site visit and a written itemised quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
A drive that has sunk, ponds or grows weeds through the joints has almost always failed underneath rather than on top. In Alderholt the ground holds water, so the fix is usually about where that water goes, not which surface you pick.
Three things bring people to ring us here. A puddle by the front door that is still there two days after the rain. Block paving that has dropped in the wheel tracks where the car sits, while the rest of the drive is fine. Or a back patio that has gone green and rocks underfoot every time you cross it.
All three are worth a look before another winter. We come out, walk the fall with a level, and where it matters we dig a small trial hole so you can see what is actually under your drive rather than guess at it. Then you get a written price for the work that is needed, and an honest answer about the work that is not.
The work
What Alderholt drives and patios actually need
Lifting and relaying block paving. A lot of the village drives went down with the 1980s and 1990s housing, and plenty more were block paved later straight over old concrete without digging out. Both fail the same way: the blocks ride down where the wheels sit, the edge restraint rolls outward, the jointing sand washes out and weed comes up through the joints. Where the sub-base underneath is sound we lift the blocks, take the levels back up on fresh sharp sand, re-haunch the edgings in concrete and re-sand the joints with kiln dried sand. Where the formation is soft and wet, relaying only buys a couple of years and we will say so on the visit.
Full rebuilds start with the dig. We excavate to formation, get a geotextile membrane down so the stone cannot pump into the soft ground below, then lay and compact the sub-base in layers rather than in one lift. Alderholt ground holds water instead of shedding it, so infiltration is not the default answer: a soakaway wants a percolation test rather than an assumption, and on the wetter plots at the Cranborne end it may need a positive outfall instead. That means going deeper than standard, the spoil is heavier and there is more of it, so the muck away is a real line on the quote.
On surfaces we lay block paving and permeable block, tarmac, concrete, and resin bound gravel where there is an existing slab sound enough to bond to. Resin over a cracked slab telegraphs the crack through within a year or two, so the slab gets checked before we quote it rather than after. On the older frontages along the lanes a bound gravel or a hoggin drive usually looks right where a black tarmac apron would not.
The patio detail we check first. The damp proof course. Raising a patio to sit flush with a threshold, or building it up over an old one, is how a dry back wall turns damp, and it is the commonest fault we are asked to put right in the village. Porcelain, natural stone and riven concrete slab all go on a full mortar bed rather than five dabs, with the fall running away from the house. Then the gullies and the channel drains, because half the sunken drives we see here are a drainage problem wearing a paving problem's clothes.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from the first visit to the last, one person to ring, and the quote itemised: excavation, muck away, sub base, edgings, surface and drainage each on their own line. On permission, more than five square metres of new hard surface has to be permeable or drain to a soakaway or a border on your own land, and the Planning Portal sets out the front garden rules. A new opening onto the highway is different, because a dropped kerb is a separate application. Alderholt has no conservation area and no listed entries in the village, so for almost every address there is nothing to apply for, and listed building consent only arises if the house itself is on the list.
Cost
What decides the price of a driveway
Access first. A 1980s cul-de-sac house with a shared turning head, a place set back behind a hedge, and a cottage on a lane with no off-street space are three different jobs before a spade goes in. Then the ground: wet, cohesive formation decides how deep the dig goes and how heavy the spoil is, and that moves the price more than the surface on top. Where the water is allowed to go is the third variable, and here that can mean an outfall, not a soakaway. Comparing quotes, ask the dig depth, the sub base, where the water goes and who takes the spoil.
If it is urgent
A trip hazard, or a drive that floods
A lifted slab, a sunken bay by a doorway or a gully that has stopped taking water are worth a phone call rather than the form: somebody falls, or the water ends up against the house. The first visit makes it safe and gets the water moving, and the permanent work is priced once the ground can be opened. Alderholt is about thirteen miles out, so that is normally the same week.
Worth knowing
Wet ground, and why a soakaway is not automatic here
Around Alderholt the ground stays wet, and that changes the drainage decision on every drive and patio. The permitted development route for a front garden assumes surface water can either soak away on your own land or be held in a permeable build up until it does.
Where the ground will not take it, a soakaway dug on an assumption simply fills up in November and stays full, and the drive ponds every time it rains. Approved Document H is the standard the work is judged against, and it puts infiltration first only where infiltration actually works.
So we test rather than assume. A trial pit filled with water and timed tells us in an afternoon whether a soakaway is realistic. If it is not, there are two honest answers. Build the drive permeable with a deeper open graded stone layer that stores the water and lets it away slowly, which costs more in stone and in digging but needs no outfall.
Or take it to a positive outfall, a ditch or a watercourse you have the right to discharge into, with a silt trap before it. What we will not do is connect your drive to a foul drain to make the problem disappear, because that comes back on you later. And on the plots where clay ground shrinks and swells, keeping that water away from the wall of the house matters more than the drive itself.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We work across Alderholt and the villages either side of the county line, out through Sandleheath and Cranborne and the rest of the SP6 postcodes, from Bournemouth. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Alderholt questions we get asked
Does anything in Alderholt need conservation consent for paving?
Not here. Alderholt has no conservation area of its own and no listed entries at all, so the covering you choose is genuinely your choice and a hard surface at the front sits under ordinary permitted development. What still applies is where the water goes. Dorset Council take an interest the moment a new drive throws run off onto the highway, so we set the falls and the outfall first and pick the blocks afterwards.
Do you dig a test hole before promising a soakaway?
Yes. The ground round Alderholt is naturally wet, so infiltration is not something to assume. We open a pit where the soakaway would sit, fill it and time how far the water drops, and if it barely moves then a soakaway is the wrong answer and the drive needs a positive outfall instead. Guessing leaves you with a drive that stores water in its own crate all winter. The result goes on the written quote.
Why does it matter where a drive drains beside the house?
Because the ground under Alderholt is cohesive and shrinks and swells with the seasons. Soak one strip of it every time it rains and you change how much that ground moves against the foundation, which is a structural question rather than only a damp one. So new drainage stays clear of the wall, runs to a proper outlet, and the surface falls away from the building instead of towards it.
Do you cover Alderholt, or is it too far out?
We cover it. Alderholt is about thirteen miles from us, so Thomas comes out in one visit, measures up, looks at the ground and leaves with everything he needs to write the quote. That visit costs nothing and neither does the written itemised quote that follows. Working out this way just means deliveries get booked tighter, because a wagon standing about on a village road helps nobody.
What tells me the base has failed rather than the blocks?
Look at the pattern. If the blocks have dropped in two lines where the car stands while the rest sits flat and the edges are still tight, the trouble is under the wheel tracks and the blocks themselves are fine. If the whole surface dips and the edge course has spread outwards, the restraint has gone and relaying alone will not hold it. On wet Alderholt ground it is normally the sub base holding water.
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Driveways and patios near Alderholt
Driveways and patios nearby
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Tell us what it is doing and we will come out, dig a trial hole where it matters, and put a written price in front of you.