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My plan is to dig out the front garden area to put in a gravel single car driveway level with the pavement, and hopefully be approved by the council for them dropping the kerb.
The idea hit a snag today when after taking down the front wall and side fence, as well as awful concrete path in front of the bay window, I decided to see how low down the house foundations are.
To my shock it's only 3 courses of bricks down from the concrete path where it sits on a strip foundation approx. 150mm thin! Apparently this was standard for 50's houses.
Using a string line from 3 bricks up from foundation out to the pavement, I learned that the pavement level is 14" below the top of the foundation level, meaning the top of my gravel drive would be 14" BELOW the top of the foundation!
The plan wasn't to have the driveway going all the way to the house anyway, but to build a retaining wall out the same width as the current concrete path.
Obviously I need a BCO coming out and professional advice, but before I go waste any money, I was wondering if anyone here could put me out of my misery and say if it's unlikely I'll get it approved.
Here are all the pictures as well as a CAD drawing of what I had in mind.
The original state we inherited buying the house:
Cleaned up
Notched a bit of scrap timber to give better clarity
Panoramic of the pavement to house with foundation in view
And CAD drawing of the dream... but probably will remain that way haha
I'm guessing a retaining wall will go where the red arrow is?
The idea hit a snag today when after taking down the front wall and side fence, as well as awful concrete path in front of the bay window, I decided to see how low down the house foundations are.
To my shock it's only 3 courses of bricks down from the concrete path where it sits on a strip foundation approx. 150mm thin! Apparently this was standard for 50's houses.
Using a string line from 3 bricks up from foundation out to the pavement, I learned that the pavement level is 14" below the top of the foundation level, meaning the top of my gravel drive would be 14" BELOW the top of the foundation!
The plan wasn't to have the driveway going all the way to the house anyway, but to build a retaining wall out the same width as the current concrete path.
Obviously I need a BCO coming out and professional advice, but before I go waste any money, I was wondering if anyone here could put me out of my misery and say if it's unlikely I'll get it approved.
Here are all the pictures as well as a CAD drawing of what I had in mind.
The original state we inherited buying the house:
Cleaned up
Notched a bit of scrap timber to give better clarity
Panoramic of the pavement to house with foundation in view
And CAD drawing of the dream... but probably will remain that way haha
I'm guessing a retaining wall will go where the red arrow is?