This weekend I'm putting in a driveway at the front of my house (before the law changes on the 1st October and I need to apply for planning permission) . Have hired a big digger to get rid of the tree stumps and dig out the area, and have got a pneumatic drill as well to get rid of the concrete path that has been there since the house was built. The plan is to create a driveway that can accommodate 3 cars, so that visitors have somewhere to park that isn't on the main road.

I'm currently thinking that a good hard base with gravel will be the easiest to do, and when we have a bit more cash (and aren't so pushed for time) we'd replace the gravel with driveway bricks.

Has anyone else every built their own driveway? And if so, have you got any tips?

Cheers
PG

hire a "whacker" (big flat plate thingy that compacts your aggregate)

Groundworks

I have "listened" to this chap on the last few jobs, I have done, making them reassuringly easy.

By the way, and not wanting to screw things up for you, but the new planning permission is required for non-porous surfaces, your interim gravel jobby would be porous, and so would not need planning permission even after 1st October.

The block paving, would however be considered to be a non-porous surface, so need planning permission, and as you will be installing after 1st October, you would not be able to claim that it was in place before the 1st........

I am not an expert and this is only my interpretation of the new rules.

Gotcha - cheers for the info all... I think that making sure we don't need planning permission is a must, so perhaps a different sort of paving would suffice? Will need to investigate, but a cheap non-porus material that can withstand the weight of a car shouldn't be too hard to find should it? I think that a wacker will also need to be added to the list for the hardcore, so I'll add that to the hire list.

I haven't got any finishing materials yet as I'm wanting to make sure I know the dimensions of the area I can use, as well as having the preperation completed before putting anything down - but the porus non-porus issue certainly needs to be looked at.

Tarmac?

I can put you on to someone if you are in London... preferrably the northern part.

I'm not in London I'm afraid Dixie, but thanks for the offer.

I thought about tarmac, but don't really like the way it looks on it's own, and would ideally like to replace whatever I put in with proper driveway bricks at some point, which was why I was thinking about gravel, as it could be easily removed and replaced. I was also hoping to do it all myself to keep the costs down.