The picture is of our driveway after about 10 minutes of heavyish rain. This is how it looks about half of the year, as in the autumn it is filled with rain, and in the spring it is filled with melting snow that runs off of both our neighbor's yards. We had the driveway scraped and filled with gravel several years ago, but the yard has clay soil beneath it, so it doesn't soak in water fast enough, which is why we are going to have some drainage work done in a month or two.
Today, I renewed my subscription of Sketchup so that I could do some planning and visualize it for my wife, as she doesn't do well with my explanations of pretty much anything visual. I don't use the program often, so the 150€ for a year subscription is a bit steep in my opinion, but it is something I know how to use and can create relatively quickly with it.
A French drain (hidden drain) will run around about where the red lines are below, and the retaining wall will be filled with gravel and soil to flatten it out and stop it going all lumpy as the ground freezes and thaws. The largest costs besides the work itself, will be building the foundation for the retaining wall, as it has to stand up to the winters. This means lots of insulation dug in around half a meter below the surface. For us to do the driveway with pavers, the same thing has to be done, but that will have to wait.
Lots of things will have to wait. While it is fast to draw things in 3D and make plans, unfortunately it takes much longer to collect the money required to actually get it all done. We have been looking at the costs of the bricks for the wall, the insulating material and the fill needed and, just to do what we have planned to do is going to be pretty bloody expensive. If we were to do the driveway as well, it would set us back years in savings.
Not to mention the terrace that we want to build later on top.
But, it has to be done if we want to make the entire house livable and usable, and not just the insides. It also increases the value of the property significantly, though it probably won't increase it enough to pay off the cost of doing it. This means it isn't a great investment financially, but should make our home life a little better. Which is good, because we won't be able to afford to go anywhere else anyway.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]