Blog
Driveway design and compliance insights
Driveway basics
Start here if you are not sure how steep is too steep, or why a car scrapes.
Your Driveway Is Too Steep. What Can Be Done?
The slope is rarely what grounds the car. One short section usually is, and re-forming that costs a fraction of a new driveway.
Four Driveway Questions to Ask Before You Sign a Build Contract
By the time the driveway becomes a problem, the garage level is set and the money is spent. Four questions, and the documents that answer them.
How Steep Can a Driveway Be?
1 in 5 normally. 1 in 4 if the steep bit stays short and is eased at both ends. The maximum is rarely what causes the problem.
Why Your Car Scrapes at the Bottom of the Driveway
Rarely the steepness. Cars ground where the slope changes abruptly, in three predictable places.
Crossover or Driveway? Who Owns Which Bit
The concrete outside your boundary usually isn't yours, even though you paid for it. That distinction decides who approves it and who fixes it.
The rules, and which one applies
The Queensland code, the Australian Standard, and how to tell which governs your job.
AS/NZS 2890.1 for Residential Driveways, in Plain English
Approval conditions name it, it costs money to read, and its gradient figures are copyright. What the standard covers, when it governs, and how to get hold of a copy.
How Driveway Gradient Profiles Can Support Faster Certification Reviews
Clear boundary and garage levels, gradient zones, and transition information can materially speed up a certifier's review of a residential driveway.
QDC or AS 2890.1 — Which One Applies to Your Job?
Three documents can apply to one driveway, and they don't say the same thing. The one that governs is the one your approval names.
Council by council
What each south east Queensland council publishes, read from its own drawings and pages.
Redland Driveways: A Permit Is Always Required
Unlike several neighbouring councils, Redland has no self-assessment path. Every driveway crossover needs a permit, and the setback list is long and specific.
Sunshine Coast Driveways: Standard, or Non-Standard?
One checklist decides everything. Pass it and you can start; fail any item and your crossover is non-standard.
Logan Driveways: When You Need Approval, and What It Costs
Logan publishes a self-assessment: pass every question and you can build without applying. Fail one and you can't.
Ipswich Driveways: Its Own Drawings, and a 2.5 m Minimum
The only council here with its own drawing numbers, and the only one publishing a minimum driveway width as well as a maximum.
Gold Coast Driveways: What RS-049 and RS-050 Actually Require
The drawings set the crossing profile metre by metre, and they take precedence over the state code where the two disagree.
What the QDC Actually Says About Driveway Gradients
The 1:8 figure gets quoted a lot, usually slightly wrong. It's the transition at each end of a steep section, with a minimum length of its own, and not a general rate-of-change limit.
Moreton Bay Driveways: Which Drawing Applies to Yours
Four drawings, and only one covers an ordinary residential driveway. The rural and heavy-duty sheets look similar and say different things.
Driveway Gradients in Brisbane: What the Council Requires
Brisbane publishes its own figures, and they're not the same as the state code. Two maximum gradients, and a rate-of-change rule stricter than most people expect.
Toowoomba Driveways: No Approval, If You Meet the Rules
Toowoomba takes the opposite approach to Redland. No approval at all, provided your driveway avoids a specific list of situations.
Designing the profile
Working method: levels, transitions, long sections, and what it costs to get wrong.
Boundary RL to Garage RL: A Practical Driveway Design Workflow
A practical walkthrough of the steps between gathering survey information and issuing a documented driveway profile ready for review.
How to Read a Driveway Long Section
Six numbers, read in the right order, tell you whether a driveway works. Most rejected drawings are missing one of them.
Getting Driveway Levels Off a Contour Survey
The survey rarely gives you the level you need at the point you need it. What it gives you is enough to work it out — and enough to get it wrong.
What Does Getting a Driveway Wrong Actually Cost?
No published national figure exists for what Australia spends rectifying driveways. There's good data on construction rework generally, and a calculation you can run on your own jobs.
Why Rate of Grade Change Matters in Residential Driveway Design
A driveway can have an acceptable maximum gradient in every zone and still create a scrape or comfort problem if the transitions between zones are too abrupt.
Transitions: The Rule Everyone Quotes Slightly Wrong
Ask a drafting office about the 1:8 rule and you'll usually get an answer close enough to sound right and close enough to get a drawing rejected.
More topics coming soon