New Construction and Circular Driveway

Hi Nancy,

We are building a new home and trying to decide on the shape and dimensions of the driveway. I have read though your web-site and looked at all the pictures and really like the look and functionality of the circular driveway. The first attachment is a picture of the front of our house. As you can see, we are under construction, but we need to decide on the driveway shape very soon. We have a 3 car garage that comes off the house at a 45 degree angle.

We have a few obstacles that we need to work around -- a utility pool at the street that is exactly lined up with the front door and also the gas and water meter that are marked in the second attachment. The second attachment shows our house and our attempt of laying out the circular driveway and the parking pad that will enable us to back out cars from the driveway. We wanted to have the driveway entrance lined up with the front door but the utility pool and water meter get in the way so we moved the driveway entrance 40 feet to the right. We also have the driveway entrance intersecting the circle exactly opposite of the garage doors -- hopefully this is clear in the file.

Questions....
* Are we on track...does a circular drive work with our house design?
* Does the offsetting of the driveway entrance to the right work? We could go to the left as well or go slightly off center to work around the obstacles.
* I have read through your advance to others about the width of the driveway and the radius. We have the driveway width at 16 feet. I know you have told others that 20 feet is good, but it just seemed so wide when we measured it out. Can we do 16 feet for the entrance but then increase to 18 or 20 feet around the circle? What do you recommend?
* The circle radius is 17 feet -- is this good?
* Our side walk from the front door to the circle is 20 feet -- 4 feet stoop and then a 16 foot walk way -- is this too long? I read in one of your responses to make the walkway to from the circle to the front door 10 to 12 feet. Is our distance too long?

I really appreciate you help and advice. Thank you very much.


Patty

Dear Patty,

You must be so excited about your new house. It's beautiful!
The parking pad by the garage is a given and looks good. The circle part of the driveway also is placed well. Be sure the driveway is wide enough to allow cars to pass one another at least by the house. An oval shaped driveway would also look nice with your house and be softer looking. A minimum diameter for the circle is 50 feet. This diameter will work well for cars, but won't accommodate large trucks.


The part of the driveway that can be improved is the leg of it from the street. It now makes a disjointed turn at the circle. In Virginia, we can put meters in the driveway. I am not sure what you mean by a utility pool, but if it is a collection of meters and wires, you may be able to bring them to the needed grade and pave over them. Bringing the driveway in at the corner gives you a much better view of the front door which you have already mentioned. You eye is also taken away from the garage. Don't focus your entrance on the garage doors. If you can't come in right at the corner, don't bring it so far over to the right and gently curve the driveway to the circle from the main road focusing on the front door as best as you can.

The sidewalk from the circle to the front door is fine at 16 feet. The walk will probably need to connect the circle to the parking pad because of how close they are together.

I hope this information helps! Good luck with your new home.

Thanks for the submission,

Nancy