Groundwork Contractors in Crawley

Many of Crawley's new town houses have room for a rear extension, a garage conversion or a garden room, and each starts with foundations. On the clay neighbourhoods such as Langley Green, Southgate or Ifield, building control commonly looks for trench fill taken down to stable clay below the zone affected by trees, while on the sandstone at Pound Hill or Three Bridges the footing may reach good bearing sooner but meet harder rock bands on the way.

We dig and pour strip, trench fill and raft foundations, build up the footings and lay oversite slabs, then hand over a level, clean base for the builder. Building control sees every trench before the concrete arrives, and on Crawley's many terraces and semis the new work often comes close to a neighbour's foundations, so notice under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 needs to be in hand before we dig.

Bulk work around Crawley ranges from reduced levels for new homes on infill plots to stripping sites for commercial units and car parks, and clearing ground for garden buildings on the bigger plots of the older roads. On the Tunbridge Wells Sand the excavator can meet sandstone bands that need a breaker, and on the Weald Clay the formation turns to paste under tracks in wet weather, so we time and sequence the dig around the ground.

Large Crawley digs generate a lot of spoil, and the town's busy distributor roads reward planning. Our 16 tonne grab lorry loads itself from the heap, and for continuous excavations we book tippers so the machines keep working. Each load is recorded on a waste transfer note under our upper tier carrier registration, and we reuse suitable material on site where the design allows.

Drainage in Crawley starts with which side of town you are on. On the sandstone of Pound Hill, Three Bridges or Maidenbower a soakaway can work if a percolation test passes, but across the Weald Clay neighbourhoods the ground barely drains, so new roofs and hard surfaces usually connect to a surface water sewer, an attenuation tank sized by a designer, or a permeable surface. Plots near the River Mole, the Ifield Brook or the Gatwick Stream should also be checked on the Environment Agency's flood map for planning.

We open and support the trenches, lay and bed foul and surface water pipes to the falls on the drawings, build inspection chambers and backfill in layers so there is no settlement later. Services are located with a scanner and the utility plans before digging, as HSE guidance HSG47 sets out, which matters on estates where shared drains and service runs can cross several gardens.

Typical demolition in Crawley means concrete sectional garages, old sheds and stores, single storey rear additions taken off before a bigger extension, and occasionally a whole bungalow or commercial building cleared for redevelopment. We take structures down in a planned order, hand strip anything on a party boundary, and sort concrete, brick, timber and metal so the most can be recycled before the site is levelled.

An asbestos refurbishment and demolition survey comes first for any building that may contain asbestos, and HSE advises that buildings from before 2000 may, which covers much of the new town's original housing and garages. Crawley Borough Council may need notice under section 80 of the Building Act 1984, and in its conservation areas, such as the High Street, Hazelwick Road or Ifield Village, demolishing some buildings and walls also needs planning permission.

Many Crawley gardens are fairly level and sit on clay, so the key to a good patio here is drainage: a proper fall away from the house, a sub base that does not hold water, and somewhere for the rain to go. We build patios, paths, steps and low walls in Indian sandstone, porcelain and block, every one on compacted MOT Type 1 with a full mortar bed under the slabs.

On the larger plots of the older roads, such as the late Victorian and Edwardian streets around Hazelwick Road, we also lay longer paths, terraces and garden walls. We help with layout and material choice, set the finished level below the damp proof course, and deal with gullies and downpipes so the new surface works with the house rather than against it.

Where a Crawley home has no off street parking, the front garden can often become a drive. We dig to a stable formation, which on the Weald Clay usually means going a little deeper, lay a geotextile membrane and about 150mm of compacted MOT Type 1, then finish in block paving, tarmac or resin bound with edgings set straight.

In England a front drive over 5 square metres needs to be permeable or drain onto your garden to avoid planning permission, which suits the clay if a permeable build up is designed properly. A new dropped kerb needs a licence from West Sussex County Council as highway authority, and planning permission can also be needed on classified roads or in a conservation area, so we raise these points at the site visit.

Crawley's terraces and rear access paths are made for a compact machine. Our 2 tonne mini digger comes with an experienced operator, fits through narrow gates and along garden paths, and suits footings, drainage runs, trenches for services, stump removal and levelling ground before a patio or garden room.

You get the machine, its attachments and the person driving it, so the work is done in the right order and the clay or sandstone is handled properly. We bring it on our own lorry, plan the unloading point around parked cars and narrow estate roads, and can add a larger excavator and the grab lorry when the job grows.