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First of all, @Iceverge thank you so much, these diagrams are absolutely incredible!!! You must have gone to so much trouble. Thank you! The good news is that the height from the external FFL to the height of where the glass of our windows start is actually 32cm more than you estimated, so we could reduce the slope quite a bit further. Secondly, in response to: is that we are a one car and two bicycle family. My wife uses the car to take my son to nursery and then get to work. I walk my daughter to school (and my son will go there next year) and cycle to work. We will never need two spaces. Thirdly This was the way to maximise the chances of getting our dropped kerb application approved. Otherwise we would have had to remove two car parking spaces from the street. I also prefer the aesthetics of walking down a path to a front door. There is no chance we are re-doing our steps. They were expensive and have come out really well. Fourthly, I agree with this As practical as that is, we are a low mileage family and wouldn’t realistically do any sort of work on the underside of our car. I’m much more likely to be tinkering with one of my bikes in the garden. Although the sump plug access would double up as a ramp for the bins, perhaps the solution is to raise the bin area so that it is level with the raised driveway. We could preserve the “air gap” with the front wall of the house to avoid bridging the DPC by just creating a metal raised platform for the bin nearest the house. With the increased height to the window there is space to reduce the slope and just raise the whole sloped plane that is in front of the aco drain upwards. The bike storage will have to be higher up, but that isn’t necessarily a big problem as it is on the north side of the driveway so doesn’t really impede light into the window. By how much should I reduce the slope? I don’t mind having a shear drop down to the aco drain. Or could that be dangerous? I guess it depends on the depth of the fall to the bottom, but presumably we are talking about 50cm to 60cm max?

Thanks @Iceverge, here you go (the purple squares are to indicate two bins): Another consideration is that the higher (and more level) the driveway is, the more light will be blocked out of our front window.

It’s all very disappointing, because the setts are made by Marshall’s and designed for driveways, and I checked with them prior to ordering and their limit is 15 degrees, so I thought this (which is 10.8 degrees) would be fine. But I guess the forum agrees with my darling wife, and we will go ahead and do it. Two questions: 1) This gradient 1/5.33 or 10.8 degrees is clearly not acceptable. But what is the maximum gradient that would be acceptable. I ask because the more gradient we have the less destructive we have to be to other elements of the front yard. For example, would raising the bottom by 40cm make enough of a difference (gradient becomes 60/533 or 6.5 degrees). 2) what height fence can I have against my neighbour’s property in a front yard situation. I ask because my front yard at the bottom nearest the house, is only 7cm or 8cm lower than my neighbours’. If I raise the ground level by 40cm I will be more than a foot higher. If I then erect my fence off that, could they complain.

Yes. I’ve worked out how to get the shiny coating off (which is wax the manufacturer applies to protect the setts (which are artificial) during transit) but it’s a least a day’s work using solvents and elbow grease and I’m not sure I can be bothered if I will just be forced to redo the whole thing anyway.

Here is other side of aco drain: Two rows of setts which are virtually flat, but with a slight fall towards aco drain, then a retaining concrete edging strip then a French drain before we hit the wall of the house. Originally, there was a patio here which was built up over the DPC and this wall had a massive damp problem as a result. As part of the refurb a surveyor designed this, which has obviously resulted in this bit of ground being quite a bit lower than before.

the drain is an aco drain which runs the whole width of the driveway at the bottom of the slope. (we have one at the top as well). The bike shed is accessed in the bottom right hand corner of this image, which the camera shot has chopped off. That’s relevant because the access to the bike shed is fairly flat and level, so reducing the slope of the driveway will either leave a massive step up from the area of ground outside the bike shed door or we need to remove the bike shed, pour quite a bit of screed/concrete and then reinstall bike shed so that it will be level. There are 6 steps up to the street from the floor immediately outside our front door. Each one is about 76cm deep. From that floor, there is also a step down to the bottom of the driveway (which partly explains why you can see a bunch of leaves which have collected there in the image). Current rise over run of driveway is 1/5.33. I will post another photo in a minute showing other side of aco drain. Those three black things are wall lights and the white wall is a planter that houses the bike shed and one day will house soil and plants to partly conceal the bike shed.

was going to post something naughty, but thought better of it.

She's actually not a bad driver. She can do the hill starts and stops now, she was just scared that it was so slippery in rain at a very mild temperature (as was I). Her complaint is that: she doesn't feel safe, it's not pleasurable at all to use the driveway the car will have more wear and tear as its handbrake is being tested everyday for much of the day. 1 and 2 are subjective and I'm not sure what can be done to change that. 3 does not sound rational to me. I googled "how long does a hand brake last" and reports: "Typically you can expect to get about 50,000 miles out of your emergency parking brake shoe with normal usage. Sometimes it may not be as much, or you may get more time out of them." Our car is approaching 40,000 miles and so I guess we could be accelerating that expiry date. My question is what happens when the handbrake cable goes? Does it suddenly fail, or does one get prior notice?

She wants us to spend £££ redoing the whole driveway by taking up the setts, building a retaining wall and raising the slope so instead of a 12 or 13 degree slope, we have something much closer to flat (but not actually flat) and then relaying the setts. The setts are not stuck down to the bedding beneath them. They are just grouted in because these are Marshalls drivesys setts, so that’s how they are installed. Part of me thinks this is absolute madness, part of me thinks that having spent so much on the house already, in the grand scheme of things this will be 1% more at most, particularly if not too many setts are damaged in the “ungrouting” process. We have about 200 setts spare anyway.

It’s also not clear to me that the mot scalping layer is even necessary. It is omitted from the instructions here, for example: https://www.tigersheds.com/blog/how-to-install-a-plastic-shed-base-kit/

Apart from this and @daiking’s response to it, I haven’t really found much on this forum about these plastic grids. i need to do my shed base next week and has decided on the plastic grid click system filled with gravel, as it’s meant to be the easiest and all the shed suppliers have said it’s fine. But I’m getting confused as to what the build up is. I think it’s something like: Shed 40mm thick plastic grid system, filled with 10mm pea shingle Geotextile membrane MOT scalpings - but not sure how thick or whether this needs to be compacted at all??? I don’t have a compactor and want to keep the labour involved quite light as it’s just me and a mate of mine doing this. If anyone has done this type of base before, I’d appreciate your tips and pointers.

So there is a possibility of putting the log store on the north side of the shed if I move the shed another foot or so from the fence. But then that area would get zero sunshine and not a great deal of ventilation because it would be sandwiched between the shed wall on one side and the fence on the other side. In order of priority, what’s more important: 1. keeping it away from horizontal rain 2. keeping it exposed to as much sun as possible 3. Keeping it exposed to as much ventilation as possible?

Well technically, I think @Carrerahill’s comments were sexist/verging on sexism/bringing sec into the discussion unnecessarily. Anyway, @Jilly’s suggestion is a good one. I will give it a try.

Thanks, now amended. Hopefully you can see it? The prevailing wind direction is very much West South West. If the logs are on the East facing wall, they will get ALL of the westerly wind. I thought that was good for drying them out, but I guess you're right about the rain. I could put in some vertical battons, from the ground up to the overhanging roof, in front of the area for the logs, to protect from wind-driven rain. Not sure.

Need to place an order for a Pent shed quite soon. Found a supplier I like who was happy to make some bespoke adjustments to the standard sized sheds. The main bespoke feature we've asked for is for the roof to be extended so that we can have a pent shed that doubles up as a log store on the outside, by having the roof overhang project by 600mm on that side, creating an overhang to shelter the wood from the rain. Here is a basic sketch showing plan and side and front elevations: This is a 6' by 14' shed: on the short side (which is South facing) we've got three windows and on the long side (which is East facing) we have the entry door, then a window, then space for the logs. The shed is going in the back corner of my garden, so no possibility of adding windows to the other sides. A few queries: Are the windows sufficient to get much light into the shed? I'm conscious half the shed will probably be in darkness but presumably a battery operated (or perhaps solar powered) lamp can easily be installed? I do have power in the garden, but not close to the shed, so to get power there I would have to lay some 12m of armoured cable and bury it in trunking etc, which I rather not do. Any issues with battery/solar power for this kind of illumination? I won't be working in the shed often, illumination is mainly to see my around and find and store things. Thoughts on the front elevation? Would it be better to split the log store into two piles, and have the window in between them, rather than all the wood in one pile? Will the log store stay dry? 600mm overhang at a slight angle of say 10 degrees will result in a covered space of about 590mm. My logs won't be bigger than 25cm long, so this should give enough space for two rows stacked perpendicular to the shed wall (250 x 2 = 500) plus a 90mm gap for rain that doesn't fall perfectly straight. Alternatively, is this all wrong and should the wood store be on the South facing side which will be sunnier than the East facing side? The reason I hadn't put the wood on the South facing side is that because of some tall trees we have at the back of the garden I don't think it will make a huge amount of difference, maybe an extra 10% to 15% of sunlight hours. Thanks in advance.

The tiler installed them, but not before I had to pick up lots of 2800 by 40 strips (which at only 6mm thick, were incredible brittle) and organise them into the right order. The water jet cutting co were great, but one mistake them made was that they forgot to label the strips, which meant sorting them into the correct order was a time consuming and risky business! I think I spent 1.5 days doing it.

@nod will give you a precise answer, but I think that shouldn’t take longer than a day to prime and tile and half a day to grout.

I recommend marazzi, porcelanosa, Domus (more of a supplier than a manufacturer), claybrook, ca’pietra. domus is extremely expensive. Marazzi list prices are high, but you can get good discounts from some suppliers, like Tower Ceramics. Claybrook has a mix of prices. Porcelanosa is expensive, but sometimes has good sales. The online only stores are cheaper, but I find that ordering samples from them I had a terrible hit rate with 9 out 10 samples looking nothing like what I was expecting based on the picture. I’ve also got good tiles from Topps Tiles. Can be a bit hit and miss, but they always have a couple diamonds in the rough. Two of our bathrooms and the kitchen splashback are done with Topps Tiles and they look great.

Maybe try dialling a non urgent emergency number, like 111. That takes you through to an automated menu, so you wouldn’t be depriving anybody of the services of 999. Or, if you really want to test the functionality of calling 999, but don’t want to trouble them with a non-urgency, injure yourself, but in a non fatal or life changing way, and then call 999.

The tiles themselves were expensive. But they were so big I only needed two. But the cutting was only about £400 (I paid cash) and delivery was free because they delivered at same time as delivering and installing our worktops. Otherwise I would have had to pay an extra £180 for delivery as they needed a special truck that could lift the tiles. It would have been a lot more expensive if we had cracked a tile on installation, but luckily we didn’t.

Also, it might still work for 999 calls.

So here is a photo of the inside of the tank some 36hr after the alarm went off. The two float sensors (one on each pump) are probably 30 degrees up from the horizontal/ 60 degrees shy of being in the vertical position, so I don’t think this is indicating anywhere near full for a 292 litre tank. Do others agree? One possibility I guess is that it was full 36hr or so ago, alarm came on, and since that time the pumps have drained it down. This is the pump spec, which I assume is per pump: https://www.drainstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Pump-Spec-NOVA-UP-300.pdf and this suggests that it will easily clear the 292L in that time. Anyone know how this is meant to work in practice? We’ve had a lot of rain in London recently, but I can’t for a minute think how such a large task would have filled up, although it is taking water from our extension and back loft roofs i belief, so probably 30sq metres, plus our patio which is about 32 sq metres. But even if we had had 2cm of rain (which I don’t think we have had) that would only be 1.24m3. Well maybe I’ve answered my own question: that is 1240 litres, and the tank is less than a quarter of that!

Your builder is correct. In England, as long as the builder is happy it is safe, building control can’t really stop you moving in either. Though they can send a notice that starts a time period (I think 4 months) by which you have to rectify breaches and get your certificate issued, moving in Matt prompt them to do that. Building warrant is not an English term, so I assume you are elsewhere.

This is also a good option. We actually have a slightly dropped ceiling above our shower area to allow for some MVHR pipes to run through into the next room and also to allow a recess for some LED strip lights to give mood lighting to the shower area.