Double Storey Townhouse

Four colours on the shelf. This job needed the dark one.

Plain grey, charcoal, soapstone, sandstone: that's the full colour range for Permcon, and none of them change the mix. Same 25+ MPa strength under every one. On this double-storey townhouse, the cladding runs dark right down to the window line, so charcoal was the only colour that made sense at ground level.

We poured the driveway and the entry path as one surface: no joints, no change in tone between the two. A two-storey façade carries a lot of visual weight, and a pale slab underneath it would have pulled the eye straight down, splitting the frontage instead of finishing it. Charcoal permeable concrete let the building keep the lead.

The harder problem wasn't colour. It was where the rain was going to go. The driveway sits close to the building line, close enough that a sealed slab would have needed falls graded across the whole run and a grated drain across the entry, just to keep water off the threshold.

Instead: one pour, one surface, no falls. Charcoal permeable concrete at the standard 125 mm thickness, over a base of clean screenings that stores the rain and lets it soak into the ground. Water passes through the slab at 8,000 to 10,000 mm/hr, at the spot where it lands, so there's no puddling at the front door and less slip risk on the threshold itself.

That matters for permits, too. Some councils require a share of the site to stay pervious, and a permeable driveway can count toward that share where the designer and council accept it. Full finish and layout options for a home are on our residential permeable concrete page.

Every job is different. We're always happy to look and review and go through it with a client. The slab carries a 10-year structural warranty, and the upkeep afterwards is light: a look once a month, garden soil and leaves kept off it, a sweep once a year. If it ever slows down, a wash sorts it out.