Driveways and boat storage

[Andrew]

Hi all, another topic cropped up recently.. that is whats the best design/ construction for home driveways and ways to store the boat. (from tarp tents, shade sheds to full sheds,) ..

One criterea for selecting our property was it had a good boat side access and back yard that trailer could be turned around in.

Recently started building a "deco" drive, it's decomposed granite. so that the boat can be moved in all seasons. It will require backing in from narrow street, so must widen the front driveway and front gate next. our place is a 809m2 suburban house block.

David replied to this topic in detail on another thread, but will try to divert it here.

[Peter T]

I guess I am very lucky, I have a shed 17.5 metres by 9.5 metres. I insisted on this to get me to build the new house as in our last place which was 2 story, I had 15 squares of garage under the house which had three car parking spaces as well as two decent size workshops. One for woodwork and one for metalwork and I didn’t want to move so my only condition was to have this new shed. I have our 25 ft caravan in one end, parking for the 4WD and the area where the lifting frame and boat live. Also still have the two workshops so am very happy with that. Attached to the house is a two car garage which houses my AC Cobra that I built as well as my wife’s car and all vehicles ( and the boat) can be turned round in the back yard. A wonderful set up and both caravan and boat is housed under cover, so how lucky am I. I love it

Regards Peter T

[Ozzie]

Drooling over your shed Peter. My workshop is about 6 ft x 8 ft. Only advantage is I can reach almost every tool by spinning on the spot. mostly work outside in the sun on portable stands.

Andrew I also highly recommend rocks/stone/ pebble in a driveway for boats or cars. I degunk Spritz on the paved area and properly dispose of the removed anti foil, but after that it goes on the 20mm river gravel side area where I can spill all sorts of crepe and spatter. After finishing just rake it over. Like new. Bad for finding lost screws though

[Ozzie]

By the way while on workshops Aldi NSW has shed storage trays/racks ETC on today. I am banned from purchasing any by Mrs Ozzie she is concerned if I buy more storage I will store more stuff. Life is unfair.

[Andrew]

Thanks Peter, looks like a dream set up you have and something to aspire to, was it your design or came with the property? Your Invesigator seems to fit in there nicely (what minimum dimensions do you recommend to fit an Investigator in and work on it?) Thanks for posting, plenty of ideas went into that shed.

In my case i'm building-up from scratch. There are allot of options. Driveway material types, cover types and different budget options too. Council regulations to navigate.

I measured my boat on trailer, its ~7.8m long, 2.25m high and about 2m wide. The options are open boat-port or closed shed. Estimate the minimum boat port dimensions would be an 6 x 3.5 m roof with 2.4 m clearance under. (with drawbar sticking out). Guesstimate that 8m long, 4m wide and 3m high would be better to fully cover with some headroom. Not sure what the councils reg's are for boundary distance, height and maximum length along boundary are yet. Looking at boat/van ports around our area for ideas.

At the moment one option is a flat roof car port down the back corner could be a way to start developing. Our limitation is there is the town sewerage pipe is in 1.2m in from the back fenceline, it can't be built on and a space must be left around that for council to dig it up if required. So the back of any structure would be about 3m from the back fence-line. There are also trees that would need trimming back to boundary.

We also have to build to cyclone ratings, (winds of up to 240 km/hr are possible in a category 5, its a rare event to get a direct hit like that, worst i've experienced here is Cat 3, about 180 km/hr in TC Yasi, that's like a jet engine screaming) so most structures are steel.

Another option is to put it about where the boat is in the photo, but remove the garden beds and extend the driveway closer to fenceline. This may be safer from tree/branch-fall in a cyclone as there are tall shade trees down the back too.

The current design problem is to figure out the front gate/driveway design. Thinking of having an all weather back-in setup. (so don't have to drive around back yard lawn to turn from a headfirst entry, only possible in dry season April-Nov) The street is narrow, so the front drive may need to be double car width.(currently single car width) we've started work by removing 3 large palm trees. A tree-man took them out with a 21m high - 10m horizontal reach cherry picker bucket. The trees were very close to the overhead powerline to the house, so it was a skill-full operation taking 1 hour. He cut them down in segments and dropped most of them straight into their truck. This front-yard project is also prompted by a growing family, we have 2 cars now but a third car for a teenage student will be needed in about a year or so.

...and much more shed storage space (with racks) would be good...(dreamin' on now..) Ozzie, my workshop is similar size to yours under the house, there is plenty of space around that too for woodwork etc. but its only about 6ft 4" high under the beams, so only a dinghy can get in there.

David's idea of the circular driveway (with a drive thru shed!) sounds like utopia, but would probably need acreage. When i bought the boat it was on 5 acres and the bloke had huge sheds and huge deco driveways front, sides etc. 3 trailer sailer's were there (outside). Acreage is definitely easier for boat handling, designing driveways and shed layouts.

(the other major boat storage option of permanent mooring/marina's would need its own thread topic)

[Peter T]

Oh dear Ozzie, they are swear words mate. Nearly bad enough to think about a trade in, HaHa.

No, not really !

It took a hell of a lot to get me to move from our old place. I Put my heart and soul into that. 40 squares, all fitted out with beautiful crafted Tassie oak floors and architraves with 10 coats of marine varnish and I did most of it myself. It really was special and had magnificent views over Bass Strait and was always intended as my forever home. Trouble was, as I age, the arthritis etc only gets worse and my wife could see the writing on the wall far more than I could. I have now had three spinal fusions! foot fused! new left hip and new right knee! all as a result of my love for motorcycles . In my youth I considered myself invincable until I banged myself up pretty bad. ( compound fracture of left femur as well as 5 fractures of right one and lost the knee cap as well) when they put me back together, they rotated my right leg outwards by 35 deg which over the years stuffed my back, then, only a few years ago, they had to re - break the right leg to straighten it before they could fit the knee replacement. I am fairly buggered now, but we will never give in to it. We just keep on keeping on, it's our only choice.
Our new home is absolutely beautiful and most of all, there is not a step or a stair to be seen here and I can still see a bit of Bass Strait. I had got to the stage that I was struggling to climb the stairs in the other place and I told " her indoors " only a couple of weeks ago that I was glad that she pushed me towards the move. It's turned out to be the best thing I could have done. One is reluctant to admit to their decline me thinks.
Cheers,
Peter T

[Andrew]

Yes sometimes a major move to a better set up is better than battling on with the present one, certainly allot of other factors including health-family needs etc must go into it too.

Getting back to driveways for boats, for those who aren't familiar with it but want a cheap DIY solution. "Deco" is an easy and well priced material to work with. I used 10 ute loads of it so far to make allot of driveway (cost $320) and allot of shovelling. It is fairly solid but has some flex to it if the clay soil expands. I dug out about 10cm of topsoil before laying it, and wheelbarrowed that to build up garden beds. Fortunately i'm fit enough, its good exercise. It can be compacted by driving over it, and after it settles more can be added where required.

It's a semi-permanent solution. Could last for decades if wished, just weed spray to clear growth off it. (or let grass grow over it and mow) It is permeable, so collects some rain water reducing runoff and recharging the soil below with moisture (not a bad thing in our climate, very long dry seasons). It has less heat island effect than concrete. It can be easily modified - like widen the drive or add another drive off it. It's easy to dig through, eg a drain pipe or underground cable could be laid under it. It's not too bad to walk on barefoot. It can easily be removed later and a more permanent concrete drive installed, any deco left will form a solid base below the slab.

Of course it can be done professionally, edged , pre-levelled and thicknessed to council specs, bobcat and truck etc

I built another deco drive about 30 years ago, about 70 meters long on rural acreage. A heavy trip truck dropped it and we spread it by bobcat and shovels. Its stood up to everything and just needed some top ups after huge wet seasons (floods). Most people out of town used it as it was one of the best solutions.

I've tried other materials 20mm gravel, crusher dust, but have come a full circle and returned to deco. The gravel was hard to keep clean (rake leaves off) and was too sharp on barefeet and washed off in floods. Crusher dust also washes off in heavy rains and with car traffic. Found the deco is "glued" together by clay. It's decomposing granite - feldspars weathering to clay but a fair bit of granite is quartz (silica, very hard) , the grains are well rounded too so they don't stick into feet or lodge easily into tyre tread (like crusher dust).

[Peter T]

Thanks David for those very kind words. Welcome anytime my boat is off the lift mate.
Oh, and bye the way, David is a very clued up craftsman as well. As a pair, I think we make an awesome team.
All the best mate.

Regards Peter T

[Andrew]

Hi Andrew,
Just a thought. A friend of mine has a large boat, that he recently brought brand new about 18 months ago. It is about 6 metres long on the trailer. Anyhow he looked into building a shed at home for it. Anyhow after doing all of the costings, he found it was actually cheaper to go and rent a large shed in a storage facility to sore it. And he worked out with having the money invested in a term deposit and a draw down facility over 15 years, he wasn't that far behind as i building the shed. The only thing in building the shed, he would have ended up with a asset for his money spent, and value adding to his property.

Well good luck with it all Andrew.

Interesting thought David well worth considering, cost effectiveness of different approaches to it.

On the flip side, Interest rates are at an all time low and likely to remain so for years. (So term deposits have low returns these days, and borrowing from banks is cheapest it's been for decades). Hard to beat a solid shed with your own workshop, the standard 6m deep Aussie Garage or carport (one or 2 bay) is a common starting point, either pre-existing or for a build.

We live in a 1950's - 1960's era neighbour hood, most of the old houses were built without sheds/driveways and the owners developed these later on. Always interesting to see how they did it.

[Andrew]

Andrew I also highly recommend rocks/stone/ pebble in a driveway for boats or cars. I degunk Spritz on the paved area and properly dispose of the removed anti foil, but after that it goes on the 20mm river gravel side area where I can spill all sorts of crepe and spatter. After finishing just rake it over. Like new. Bad for finding lost screws though

Gday Ozzie,

the 20mm river gravel sounds like a good way to deal with side areas. Never been much of a landscaper, so was wondering is it underlain by something to stop weed growth, and what is it? (weedmat or plastic sheet?). Presently i'm not using any weedmat and those weeds love sprouting everywhere, control them with an 18v snipper and roundup spray (but not a huge fan of the later).