Charlie Andrews

In my second year of university, I finally had a house with a garden large enough to attempt a large DIY project! It had been a long-standing dream of my housemate to build a mini ramp, and it seemed like a perfect time to try a project like this.

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I drew a few sketches and measured up the garden to see which size would work. I decided that the dimensions should be 2 foot tall, with an 8 foot transition and a 6 foot flat bottom. This was the largest it could be without being too steep.

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The materials were mostly sourced from a local wood recycling project that works alongside the city council to reduce wood waste. The metal coping was made from scaffolding bars, kindly given to me by a previous boss.

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Building the ramp was really fun and a great learning experience, especially for project management. Rainy days meant that the project took a little longer than expected to complete, and the lack of choice of plywood in the wood recycling centre meant that some of the wood had to be brought new from a builders merchant. This meant that the project went a little over budget, although still only costing around £200 in total to complete.

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If I were to attempt a similar project in the future, I would use a waterproof material, such as Skatelite for the top surface. Rain throughout winter rendered the ramp virtually unusable by the following summer. In addition to this, the whole ramp should be set on a slight angle to allow rain water to run off. I went to great lengths to set it as flat as possible, but this proved to be the ultimate undoing of the project.