Drives and vans.

Danger – man at work!

We’ve pretty much decided what make of van we’re after (Hymer), and have narrowed it down to two of their older models (B544 or B584). We figured we’d better check that they would fit on the drive.  Lengthwise, it looks like we’ll be OK (they’re around 19ft) as long as we can turn the current gates around so they open outwards – not sure if this is legal, but suspect we won’t be opening them too often.

After a bit of internet research, we discover that both models are the same width – 7ft 4″ – go on, have a guess how wide our current gates are – yes, 7ft 4″!  Now even with my amazing driving skills, I struggled to get Harvey through the gates and he was quite a bit narrower.  So, either we arrange storage elsewhere or we need wider gates.

We’ve gone for option two – and work began this weekend. Good old ebay – we’ve secured some bi-folding gates (so they won’t need to open outwards), and at 11ft wide I figure I should be able to fit a 7ft van through them.  The gates are being delivered next week, so J’s started to cut away the trees and dig out a hole for the new concrete post to fix them to.  I’m told that after several trips to the tip today, we “simply” need to cut the wall to the right length, without bringing it all down, and concrete in the post. We’ve decided to do this when we have the gates (hopefully next weekend), so we know exactly how wide the gap will need to be.

Once we’ve made the gap big enough we’ll have to see how much of the grass is driven on when parking, so further work may be needed to widen the actual drive – but that can wait until we’re all excited with a new van!

Update: Check out our update of the great drive widening, including costs.