Ace and Sons Roofing and Groundworks
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Excavated ground alongside a house, photographed from the cab of a tracked excavator.

Groundworks in Orpington

Excavation, drainage runs, sub bases, footings and setting out. The part of every job that gets covered up, and the part we photograph.

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What groundworks is

Groundworks is everything that happens before the thing you asked for. Before a patio there is a dig, a drainage run, a sub base. Before a drive there is an edge in concrete and a fall towards a gully. Before steps there is a footing. Before an extension there is all of it. None of it is visible when the job is finished, which is why so little of it gets done properly, and why we photograph ours.

We set out with paint and pins, we dig to a level rather than to a guess, we lay drainage to a fall and set the gullies flush before the base goes in, and we compact in layers. That is the whole method. The sequence below is one job, at one address, in the order it happened, with nothing left out.

One job, all the way down

The same address, in the order it happened. Churned ground, set out with the drainage in, sub base compacted with the gullies set, paving down, finished with the turf.

Churned ground and tyre ruts running the length of a house, with a wheelbarrow and an open manhole.
1 The ground as we found it.
The same ground set out in orange marker spray, with a drainage chamber and a gully sitting in the dug earth.
2 Set out, and the drainage in.
The terrace area filled with compacted stone, gullies set flush, the excavator parked at the far end.
3 Sub base in and compacted, gullies set to level.
Riven sandstone paving laid across the terrace under a glass balcony.
4 Paving down under the balcony.
The finished paved path running along the brick wall of the house, with new turf laid beside it.
5 Finished, with the turf down.

Steps, cheek walls and small brickwork

The smaller end of groundworks. A doorstep is a footing, a few courses of brick and a handrail, and it is dug first like everything else.

Brick steps under construction at a front door, with bricks stacked on the path ready to lay.
Steps going up, bricks stacked ready.
A raked brick cheek wall being built beside a front door, with the ground beneath it open and gravel showing.
A cheek wall going up with the ground still open.
The side of a brick doorstep under construction, the cheek wall part built and the ground beneath it opened up.
The cheek wall from the side, ground open beneath.
Finished brick steps and a raked brick cheek wall at a front door, with a galvanised handrail either side.
The same doorstep with the ground open, bricks stacked ready and the handrail fittings on the floor.
The ground open.

A doorstep

New brick steps, a raked cheek wall and a galvanised handrail, with the ground opened up first.

Paths, retaining walls and terraces

The rest of what groundworks turns into once the ground is open. Where we have the same spot before we started, it is in the corner.

A finished dark porcelain terrace running alongside a house, wet from rain, with a new white rendered retaining wall on one side.
The same run before the work: old crazy paving, wet, with pallets and a board on the ground.
Before.

A terrace beside a house

Old crazy paving out, the ground taken back, a new rendered retaining wall built and dark porcelain laid the length of the house.

A wide grey plank paving path laid across a lawn to a blue summerhouse, with a planted border of clipped shrubs alongside it.
The same garden from the same spot before the work, with a narrow crumbling stone path and a bare border.
Before.

A path across a lawn

A narrow crumbling path taken out and replaced with a wide plank paving run, with the border planted up beside it.

A new blockwork retaining wall running the length of a boundary on a slope, with close board fence panels set between piers along the top.
A retaining wall holding a slope, with the fence run along the top of it.
Steps and a landing in dark porcelain with rendered cheeks, beside a stone retaining wall and a hydrangea in flower.
Porcelain steps and landing with rendered cheeks.

Groundworks in Orpington, Sevenoaks, Biggin Hill, Brasted, Westerham, Oxted and Knockholt, and the area around them. Where we work.

Get a price

Tell us what the job is and roughly where it is. We will come and look at it.

We use what you send here to quote your job and nothing else. How we handle it.

A doorstep with the ground open, bricks stacked ready and the handrail fittings on the floor.

What happens next

  1. Send the form, or ring us.
  2. We come and look at the job.
  3. You get a free written quote.

0800 193 4212Freephone07925 068877Mobile aceandsonss@gmail.com

Orpington, Kent, and the area around it.

or mobile 07925 068877 Call 0800 193 4212 Get a price