Driveways and patios in Ferndown

Tired tarmac from the estate era. Ferndown filled out quickly through the late sixties and early seventies, a fifth of the town in those few years alone, and a lot of those houses came with a thin tarmac drive over very little. When the binder has weathered out the surface goes grey and loose, then it ruts under a parked car and cracks at the edges where there was never an edge restraint at all. Where the base is sound we can overlay or take resin bound over the top. Where it is not, it comes out, the spoil leaves by grab lorry, and we dig to formation, lay a geotextile membrane where the ground is soft and build a compacted sub-base that will actually hold a car, with a haunched kerb or edging where there was never one.

Parking courts at the flats. Nearly a third of the town is flats and retirement blocks, and their shared courts wear differently: the bays by the entrance go first, the bin store apron takes a hammering from a heavy lorry every week, and the falls are usually flat enough that water sits. We are happy to price these for a management company or a residents' association, in sections that can be done without shutting the whole court, and with the figures set out so leaseholders can read them. Where the cost triggers consultation, section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 is the process the managing agent has to follow.

Two houses in five here are bungalows, and rocking concrete flags on five spots of mortar are the standard find in the back garden. They come up, the base is rebuilt, and porcelain, sawn stone or riven natural stone goes down on a full mortar bed with a fall running away from the house and the joints pointed. On the block drives the jointing fails first, so a re-sand with kiln dried sand and a reset edge often does more than a full relay. The finished level stays clear of the damp proof course and the threshold, which on a bungalow is a much tighter margin than people expect.

Drainage is its own item rather than an add-on. The ground here is naturally wet, so a channel drain at the garage door, a gully that has silted solid dug out and re-connected, a permeable build-up so the surface takes its own water, or a soakaway sized from a percolation test is the part that decides whether the rest of the work lasts, and whether a bay ponds and stains green every winter. Approved Document H is the standard it is designed against.

No rate per square metre, because what is under the surface decides more of the cost than what goes on top. A seventies bungalow with a straight drive to an integral garage, a detached house on a wide corner plot where a machine can work, and a flat in a block where every barrow crosses a shared court through a side gate are three different jobs before a spade goes in. On ground this wet, somewhere for the water to go is a design decision with a cost. Ask what depth, what sub base, and who takes the spoil.

We cover Ferndown and West Parley, Longham, Stapehill and out to West Moors and Wimborne across the BH22 postcodes, and Dorset Council is the planning and building control authority for this address. 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.