Driveways in Wimborne Minster

Frontages and courtyards behind the old houses. Getting on for a fifth of the houses in Wimborne are pre-1919 and the largest single group is pre-1900, so much of this work is small areas with awkward access and often no way in except through the house or a side gate.

Everything moves by barrow and the machine that would take a day off the job simply will not fit. We lift old clay paviours and stone flags by hand, keep and clean what is sound, rebuild the base, and re-lay with the pattern and the pointing that was there. Sawn natural stone, clay pavers and granite setts all sit comfortably on these streets. Concrete block on a period frontage rarely does.

Ground levels against an old wall. This is the one that costs people money in Wimborne. On the oldest houses the damp proof course is a slate course low down, or there is none at all, and generations of paving laid over paving have quietly raised the ground until it bridges the wall and wet tracks inside. The fix is to reduce the level, not add to it, and where that is impossible, a drained gravel margin or a channel drain along the wall with a proper outfall. We check it with a level before quoting, because it changes the whole design of a courtyard.

Shared parking at converted houses and blocks. A third of the homes in Wimborne Minster are flats, and a lot of that parking sits behind converted buildings, in courts never built for the number of cars now on them. The bays by the entrance go first and the falls are usually flat enough that water stands and stains. We will survey one for a managing agent or a residents' group and price it in sections so the whole court is never closed, set out plainly enough for leaseholders to read. Where the cost triggers a formal consultation, section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 is the process the agent has to follow.

Out from the centre it is the familiar work: tarmac gone grey and open, concrete cracked into rocking panels, block paving dished by the garage and short of jointing sand. We lift and re-lay block by hand on a corrected sub-base, overlay a sound base in tarmac or resin bound, or excavate to formation, lay a geotextile membrane and build a compacted sub-base to the depth a parked car needs. Patios come up off their five dabs of mortar and go back on a full mortar bed with the fall running away from the house, and the finished level is set from the threshold, not from the old paving. For the back garden, see patios in Wimborne Minster.

Room for a soakaway is scarce in a town garden, even where the sand drains well, so the drainage is often a permeable build-up, a channel drain to an existing surface water outfall, or a silted gully dug out and re-connected. Approved Document H is the standard the design answers to. On a narrow street there is frequently nowhere to stand a skip, so the muck away is planned around a timed grab lorry and everything leaves with us.

We do not quote a rate per square metre. What is under a drive decides more of the cost than what goes on top.

Access for plant. An open front on the later estates in Merley or Leigh Park lets a digger and lorry work straight off the road. A terrace in the centre where every barrow goes through the house, or a courtyard behind a shop with one gate, is days of hand work.

Depth of dig and muck away. Sand compacts well, but a clay pocket needs a deeper, well compacted sub-base, so more spoil comes out and more stone goes in. Old concrete, tarmac or buried rubble adds loads to the lorry.

Where the water goes. Sandy ground usually drains freely, so a soakaway often works once a percolation test passes. Permeable block paving, a channel drain to a proper outfall, or falls to a border each cost differently, and Approved Document H covers drainage.

The surface. Block paving, resin bound gravel, tarmac and natural stone all differ, as do edgings and kerbs.

Ask any other quote how deep the dig is and what depth of sub-base goes in, where the surface water goes, and whether removing the spoil is included.

We lay drives and paths 8.1 miles from our Boscombe base, in the town, Pamphill, Furzehill, Merley and Colehill, and further out in Corfe Mullen and Broadstone, and Dorset Council deals with any planning or building control.

The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. It is owned by Thomas Hannen, who measures the drive and prices it himself rather than sending someone else. A verified customer gave us a score of 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The site visit is free, and the written quote with every item listed is free too. Before you book a visit in Wimborne Minster, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Wimborne Minster need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.