Concrete Contractors near you

The five square metre threshold is the number worth remembering. GOV.UK's guidance on permeable surfacing of front gardens explains that the change from 1 October 2008 made hard surfacing of more than five square metres of a domestic front garden permitted development only where the surface is rendered permeable, and sets out the options for achieving permeability and meeting that condition, including permeable surfaces, soakaways and rain gardens that control and reduce rainfall running into the drains.

The Planning Portal adds the detail that these rules apply to houses rather than flats or maisonettes, and cover front gardens specifically. Rear patios, side paths and garden slabs are governed by other considerations, and a listed building or a conservation area can impose its own constraints on materials and appearance regardless of size.

Crossing the pavement is a separate approval with its own timetable. A dropped kerb is a lowered sloping access point in the pavement and is required if you wish to drive over a pavement onto your property, and it is illegal to do so without one; you apply to the local authority for it. Having the drive laid and then being refused the crossover is a familiar and entirely avoidable sequence of events.

Falls are the first thing to agree and the easiest to get wrong. A surface next to the house should shed water away from the walls and clear of any air bricks, and a new level that buries the damp-proof course creates a damp problem rather than solving a paving one. Ask to see the intended levels marked out before anything is poured.

Where the water goes next is the permeability question. A permeable build-up lets water through the surface into a sub-base designed to hold and release it; an impermeable slab needs the water routed deliberately to a soakaway, a rain garden, a border or a lawn. The point of the 2008 change was to stop domestic front gardens adding to surface water run-off, so a contractor should be able to say which approach your drive uses and where the water ends up.

Check the flood picture before choosing between them. In England you can check current flood warnings and alerts along with river, sea, groundwater and rainfall levels, though surface water or flash flooding is dealt with by your local council rather than that service; Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each run their own.

Fine surface cracking that appears within days is usually shrinkage as the concrete cures, and it is often cosmetic. Cracks that open over months, step at an edge, or run through the full thickness of a slab point at the ground underneath rather than the mix on top, and that is a different conversation with a different remedy.

Settlement almost always traces back to the sub-base: material that was too thin, not compacted in layers, or laid over soft spots and buried tree roots. Ponding water after rain points the same way, or to falls that were never set out properly. Both are far cheaper to prevent at excavation stage than to correct afterwards.

Trees and ground conditions deserve a mention before work starts. Where the ground is shrinkable clay and there are mature trees close by, the advice of an engineer before laying a slab or founding a garden wall is worth having, since both the ground beneath and the surface above can move seasonally.

On a domestic job the legal duties do not sit where most people assume. HSE explains that a domestic client under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 is any individual who has construction work carried out on their home, or the home of a family member, that is not done as part of any business, and that the client duties pass to others: to the contractor on a single contractor project, or to the principal contractor where more than one contractor is involved. A designer can take them on instead only under a written agreement.

That does not make site safety invisible to you. HSE warns that wet cement is highly alkaline and that a serious burn or ulcer can rapidly develop if it is trapped against the skin, that cement causes both irritant and allergic contact dermatitis, and that COSHH controls, waterproof gloves and boots, proper washing facilities and training are required. Cutting and drilling concrete releases respirable crystalline silica, which HSE treats as a real risk to the lungs rather than a nuisance, controlled under COSHH using its assess, control and review approach.

Get the scope written down before work starts: excavation depth, sub-base material and compaction, membrane, reinforcement, joint positions, falls, where the water is being sent, and how the old surface is removed and disposed of. Check the firm's insurance, and note that TrustMark, the government-endorsed quality scheme backed by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Department for Business and Trade, gives another way to check standards and a route to complain.