[Closed] What are your creative parking solutions?

When I lived in a terraced house I was lucky to be able to get within 40m. (Never put glue in anyone's lock though...)
Do you need to be able to park close?

You should be able to just about stagger the cars (depending on where the french doors are & how big your cars are)

I'd pass though, parking / seeing where your car is can be important

Can you just leave the gates open & gain a few more feet that way?

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Park in front of your gates.

Fit sliding doors instead of french doors.

I can not always park my van outside my house. I often keep a bike in the back and ride if I have to park too far away. It take up a bit too much room in the back so I'm thinking of getting a long board to shuttle backwards and forward between house and van.

Can't overhang the gates or park in front as that's the access road. Happy for the second car to be parked some distance away but that 40m is where the terraces start, they go on for some distance.

Love the subterranean parking but I'd wager that costs more than the house itself.

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Swap car number one for one of these, then park car number two, on [s]car[/s] truck number one

Its good plan that one 😆

Just walk if it is only short term and the pain of this may encourage you to get to one car faster.

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buy a couple of smart cars. You could fit 3 of them on that drive with almost half a metre to spare.

I'd need 3 smart cars to carry half the stuff I lug around for work.

The purist beat me to it.

But if that's too expensive:

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Open french doors. Drive in. Sorted 🙂

I can't, behind those French doors is going to my in-house bike room.

8.5m is way bigger than a car.

But not way bigger than two

[quote=Drac said]8.5m is way bigger than a car.

Yes, but the OP is looking to park two cars into the space. And not all of the 8.5m is usable.

3.5m wide and he's dropping down to one car.

[quote=Drac said]3.5m wide and he's dropping down to one car.

Read the OP again 🙂

seeing those automated parking pics above...
really ought to video my car going in and out of my automated parking basement garage
(28 places, 7 end to end slots, stacked 2 high on each side afaik)

Any scope to make the drive wider, possibly at an angle so you can jig the parking? Post up a google earth shot if you can.

We'd like to drop to one but that would depend on the wife finding a new job. My job will always need a car (rammed full of equipment).

For the foreseeable future we need two cars.

Possibly could go a little wider but it would eat into the already tiny garden. Been looking at pics wondering if we could somehow get them both in there without blocking the French doors and not blocking the other car.

Can you hinge the doors to go in over instead.

Smaller second car. Get the wife a c1. /aygo

Personally id can it , parking jenga is shite.

Probably not what you want to hear,but if you are going to have parking problems don't move there.I used to live in a terraced house with on road parking,lovely house but the parking issue was a real pain for both me & anyone visiting.I never realised how much of a issue it was until I moved to a place with off road parking,never again..

My 3 series Touring = 4470mm, my wifes Panda is 3540mm. That's 8000mm leaving you a good 500mm to open the doors.

I don't see a problem.

Just take pointers from my new neighbours and park wherever you like even if it does block access to the back lane and four garages, on a regular basis, then piss and moan when asked to move your needlessly big Shogun or Hilux. I'd start a thread but I'm resigned to that fact that they are arseholes and will never learn.

See, I don't want to be that person. No point kissing the neighbours off. Especially as all ten owners share this freehold. Wiser to get along I think.

Quick calculation suggests that with both cars on the drive, we'd have less than an inch of clearance total.

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The black car in the pic shouldn't be there by the way.

The bit we're looking at is bottom right corner of the building.

What matts saying is there will always be one **** on the freehold . Might not be you but it will not be rosey and run exactly as its sold to you , restricted parking is crap.

[quote=Daffy said]My 3 series Touring = 4470mm, my wifes Panda is 3540mm. That's 8000mm leaving you a good 500mm to open the doors.
I don't see a problem.

Are they old models ? The latest stats for both cars are longer than that.

3 series touring 4624 mm
Panda 3653 mm

= 8272mm

Oh thats easy . Just make the drive wider and dig up some grass

You'll have to sacrifice garden but its sacrafice garden or sacrafice a car.

, ps your having these thoughts now , what are prospective buyers when you sell going to be thinking.

Im out. Looks like a postage stamp crammed in with no garden/drive or access.

[quote=trail_rat said]Oh thats easy . Just make the drive wider and dig up some grass

That ^^^

Yeah, I know it has the potential to be pants. Drive bys reveal that the current owners use a neighbours space for their second car. Obviously, we can't rely on th same. I want to work out exactly how restrictive this parking will be as the house it lovely otherwise.

No point kissing the neighbours off.

Ahhh. It's one of those private roads.

As others have said, it'll cause you long term pain/hassle - keep looking?

No point kissing the neighbours off.
Ahhh. It's one of those private roads.

Bloody auto correct!

Replacing grass with driveway is an option but I think it will still mean shifting one car to get the other out and what effect might that have when we come to sell.

Yeah, really don't want to walk away from this one but the parking might turn a dream home into a nightmare.

Less effect than having only having one parking space.

[quote=Onzadog said]
Replacing grass with driveway is an option but I think it will still mean shifting one car to get the other out and what effect might that have when we come to sell.

Not much effect I would think. You'll have two parking spaces. Lots of people have to juggle cars around.

Replacing grass with driveway is an option

What about a halfway house of embedding those plastic squares in the grass so you can park on it, but still have grass

At the end of the day it is not a dream home if it doesn't work because you can't park conveniently.

I think every house will have a compromise somewhere, you have decide what compromise you can cope with. I don't think this sounds like a compromise that would work in the long run.

Also, where would visitors park?

If it is private, do you become a part owner when you buy the property or would you merely have right of access?
If you become a part owner, what is set up with regard to maintaining it? Is there a sinking fund taking in annual contributions so that it can be repaired or will it fall on those who live there at the time to pay for repairs regardless of how long they have lived there or whether other owners have lived there, used it and moved on without ever contributing.

Might not be an issue or it could be in the future...

Don't worry "thegingerone". There is visitor parking, plus for a busy weekend, we could move the wife's car to the compound at work. The property is leasehold and with that comes 1/10 of the freehold of the estate. There is a sink fund that sounds reasonably robust. In fact, they're considering dropping the annual charge.

leasehold - yuck. Granted my only experience is with flats and never doing that again.

Leasehold and limited parking?

Get the **** out of dodge my friend, that's a whole heap of shit your would be buying in to.

We were initially sceptical of the leasehold thing but it seems to be a regional thing and pretty hard to avoid in the area we're looking at. The upside is that, at least we'd also be the freeholds (along with the other residents) and there's over 950 years of lease left with no rent.

Considering some of those grid things nbt, just wondering what they're like pkg term. Does it become grass you can park on or a green grid filled in with mud?

Considering some of those grid things nbt, just wondering what they're like pkg term. Does it become grass you can park on or a green grid filled in with mud?

It depends! Partly it depends on the quality of the grass anyway. Grass needs to be well drained and well watered... ...if the driveway drains onto the grass that edge section could get very soft in heavy rain. It seems to drain better with well established grass on it.

However the real issue for the grass is if the car is parked there for long periods during the day. Sunlight is obviously essential.

I've seen this used as "road" with large numbers of vehicles crossing and it copes very well because it is exposed to daylight between vehicles. I've also seem it used with a caravan on top which did get used almost every weekend year round and its was ugly, dead grass and mud!

Careful if you try to wedge two vehicles on there - I bet you can't get too close to the gate before it refuses to close 🙂

And practically, you need to work out if you can turn a vehicle easily onto the grass without having to get within 5mm of the gateposts.

Agreed, I'm already thinking that if car A is clear enough of the French doors, it will still have to be moved for car B to get on and off the new drive/reinforced grass.

It wouldn't bother me as I can't park anywhere near the house as it's straight onto a field but if it bothers you, it will bother a potential buyer in the future. I would walk unless there are few alternatives.
When I lived in a street with multiple occupancy households parking could be a nightmare and you'd dread having to move the car as getting back would be such a hassle. That just introduces an unwelcome stress in your life which doesn't go away as there's nothing you could do about it. If it's giving you grief already, is it likely to get any better in the future?

If by buying the property you become a co-director of the leasehold company along with the other owners, it is not that bad. I currently have that where I live. We have to have management meetings twice a year, we rotate who is the company secretary and who is the treasurer. Once a year you have to upload the accounts to companies house. It is a slight ball ache, but nothing compared to when a company owns the leasehold. As long as everything is done properly and the owners are happy to take their turns (the difficult bit especially with the inept).
Though I am admittedly happy to be moving away to reduce the burden. 🙂