Front garden paving and bay window downpipe

Seol88

1870ish London terrace

We're having some our masonry sorted out and at the same time this rendered plinth.

Unfortunately the front garden is quite untidy with cables and a concrete slab which has eroded from the downpipe and has lots of cracks - doesn't look like it was the best job to begin with.

You can just see the corner of some pavers which form a path across to the mosaic tiled pathway to the front door. On the outside there's a bed topdressed with bark with a shrub or two in it.

I'd quite like to remove the concrete slab and replace but what considerations should I have with the downpipe, paving level, plinth etc?

There are no damp issues at the moment and would like to keep it that way!

Thanks in advance!

ThisIsWeird

A wider shot to show what's in front of that would help.
But in essence, the DP is just emptying on to the concrete slab, and the flow will presumably find somewhere just beyond the slab to soak into the ground? Does it flood or pool?
If you remove the slab, you'll need some way to replicate this and prevent pooling against the house wall.
What's beyond this? Where does the water currently end up?

FreeBear

Removing the concrete sounds like a good idea. I'd extend the downpipe and fit a debris gully at the bottom and then route a length of underground drainage to a suitably sized soakaway (using storm crates). Dig a trench about 200mm wide & ~150mm deep along the wall. Filled with some decorative gravel, it will help to keep the wall dry.

Match the finished surface level with the paving in the foreground, and you get rid of a trip hazard. What surface finish you put down is entirely up to you - Block paving is cheap and fairly easy to do yourself. Gravel is another alternative, but small chippings could signal to the local feline population that it is a public toilet. A flower border requires regular maintenance and could get out of control if not looked after..

Seol88

Annoyingly I don't have a picture and I'm away at the moment but there's the slab, some pavers that you can see and then a shrub bed that's level with the pavers, about 2m deep and then front garden wall.

twopenny

Sorry scol I had to chuckle. I've seen many the same when looking at houses.
The cheapest and easiest route possible.
Depending on the money available you can live with it for a while and gives you time to decide how you want to go about this ie re route cables, downpipe etc or watch what happens and do it one or two at a time after advice and quotes.
To be fair you really do need to live with it and see what happens. Someone did quite happily.

Only the second puzzling mix of surface cables I've seen   

Eldi_Dos

Looking at the picture there is a scalloped edging (may be quite old) that would indicate that was the soil level before concrete was poured into that space.

Remove all the concrete and dig down to about 100/150 mm lower than scalloped edge and then extend down pipe with a debris gully in place out to a newly formed soak away beyond what looks like concrete slabs.
Then backfill that area with a gravel that compliments the mosaic path.

The cables that are lying on the surface and go into the unlidded box on the wall, I would contact the company that owns them to come and remove them or make good. By the look of the box without lid they could well be redundant and should be removed.