Zeffo77

Hi. I have a draft coming into the living room. Upon removing the plastic facia on the outside of the wall, my lovely builders had left it un-bricked and with no insulation. We has insulation put in but the draft is still present across the whole wall. As a temporary fix I have stuffed polystyrene into the gap between the wall and my ceiling. Should I lay brick to fill in the gap outside or as my brother-in-law tells me, use timber as I need air circulation. Or can I just fill in from inside the house with foam insulation? Original builders will not be coming back so they will not be fixing it! I have attached pictures of the gap, the inside wall and the wall outside with a plastic fascia on. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Hi all. Please find designs attached. We are leaning towards having the design with the stairs on the right hand side. If anyone can help with my original question regarding drainage, please do. The second wall, which is the highest, will be 1m so no need for planning permission. We plan to have gravel on the driveway.

Sorry mate, don't quite understand your post but please read my newest one which hopefully makes things clearer

Please see above comment from myself. I guess I wasn't very clear in my original post

We want to level out the driveway for 2 reasons. 1. My parents live with me and it's getting harder for them to navigate the slope. 2. Kerb appeal. It looks unfinished at the moment. When I bought the house it was similar to my neighbors drive (image attached). We cleared it all thinking it would be better with an entrance/exit in the middle. That isn't the case anymore so want to have the driveway level in line with the front door height, 1.1metres.

Hi I am going to build a 2-tier retaining wall for my driveway. 8m in length. The higher tier will be 1.1m. The lower tier will be 600mm. I am looking into drainage behind each wall and it looks like a french drain is my best option. But I do not know where to outlet the water. I cannot let it come out onto the pavement so could someone please advise on what I should do. I have attached a picture of my drive currently. Thanks.

Hi. I'm hoping someone can offer some assistance please. I have a front driveway which is approx 14m x 14m. It is currently on a slope and I am planning to build a retaining wall with oak sleepers. The wall will be 1.1m high and will be 2 tiered, like steps. I am going to have 2 trenches for each wall with a horizontal sleeper used as posts in concrete behind each wall. In the trench will be DPC material and then some form of aggregate with then concrete added to make a flat base. I want to sit the sleepers on their narrowest side, 100mm. I will connect the sleepers with wooden dowels for extra strength. To reinforce the walls, I will run deadmen/t-bar reinforcements every 8ft along every row and every other row in height. I will also be laying a French drain behind both walls leading to a dry well at either end of the wall. I have attached images of a very rough diagram to illustrate this with also my driveway currently and how i want the wall to look like. My questions are: 1. How deep should my trenches be and how much of the 1st sleeper should be below ground level? 2. How should I attach the 1st row of sleepers to the base? Rebar or coaches or something else? 3. Can I feed the perforated drain pipe around the horizontal posts? Will that not affect water flow? 4. Is having the 2nd wall 6 sleepers high too much? Will it be secure with the deadmen/ t-bar reinforcements? 5. Should I be connecting the sleeper rows with wooden dowels or perhaps rebar instead? 6. Would corner metal brackets add to reinforce or are overkill? Also, please feel free to offer me any guidance, or let me know I'm on the right track(!). I hope the above makes sense!