Mews Bay

What you get. One LED strip under the roof tray, wired to a PIR sensor at the door. Comes on when you open up and goes off a couple of minutes after you leave.

What it needs. A fused spur at the front of the house. If there is no outdoor supply there already, running one is extra and we price it at survey rather than guessing.

About 4W, so it costs pennies a year. It is the difference between finding your lock in December and swearing at it.

What you get. A steel tray that forms a solid floor inside the unit, so bikes and bins stand on a clean, level surface rather than the ground beneath.

What it needs. A reasonably level surface. We check the ground at survey.

Units come with an open base as standard. The tray is worth adding over gravel, soil or uneven paving.

What you get. One weatherproof camera on the roof line looking down the run. 1080p, night vision, motion alerts to your phone.

What it needs. Wi-fi that genuinely reaches the front of the house, and the same fused spur as the lighting.

Records to the camera’s own card as standard. Cloud storage is a subscription with the camera manufacturer, not with us — we take no cut and we hold none of your footage.

What you get. A weatherproof 13A socket inside the unit, RCD protected, on its own spur. Charge the bike where it stands instead of carrying a battery through the house.

What it needs. A fused spur from your consumer unit, installed and certified in your name by our registered electrician.

London Fire Brigade advises storing and charging e-bikes in a safe external location such as a garage or shed, and never on your escape route — a hallway or beside the front door. This puts the battery outside the house, on a hard flat surface, in a steel box. It does not make a lithium battery risk-free: use the manufacturer’s own charger, let the battery cool before plugging in, and do not charge unattended or overnight.

What you get. A 7kW home chargepoint built into the unit, with the cable managed inside the structure so nothing trails across the pavement.

What it needs. An electrical survey before we can confirm it. Some houses need a consumer unit upgrade; some need the distribution network operator notified. Both are quoted separately and never absorbed into the headline price.

Installed and certified by our registered electrical contractors. Government chargepoint grant eligibility changes periodically — we will tell you what is current at survey rather than promise something that has since closed.

What you get. Takes the unit to 1.15m deep and 1.55m tall with reinforced floor mounts, so a Long John or an e-cargo bike wheels straight in. E-bike charging is included.

What it needs. More frontage than a standard unit, and enough room for the doors to clear the path. Checked at survey.

On a side return it is rarely possible; passages are usually too narrow.

What you get. A shallow biodiverse sedum mat laid into a steel tray with a pebble drainage margin. Flowers through the summer.

What it needs. Nothing from you. It is laid at installation.

Cut back once a year. It holds rainfall back from the drain in heavy weather, and a planted roof is a far easier case to put to a planning officer than a bare steel one. Automatic irrigation is available if you have an outside tap, though sedum rarely needs it.

What you get. A deeper tray, filled and planted at installation. Lavender and rosemary on a sunny frontage; grasses, box and low shrubs on the deep version.

What it needs. Sun. If your passage or frontage is in shade most of the day, take the sedum mat or the flat top instead.

On Mews Boundary the depth is doing real work: the planting sits at eye level from the pavement, so the run reads as a hedge rather than a structure. On a sunny frontage add automatic irrigation — a shallow tray dries out far faster than open ground. MewsCare covers the annual cut back, feed and any replacement planting.

What you get. A drip line laid through the growing medium, with a pressure reducing valve and a timer at the tap. Runs for a few minutes early morning, which is all a sedum mat or a planted trough needs.

What it needs. An outside tap within reach of the unit. If there is not one, fitting a garden tap is plumbing work — we can arrange it or you can, but it is not included and we will say so at survey rather than after.

Drip systems are generally exempt from a hosepipe ban provided they have a pressure reducing valve and a timer and are not hand held — which is exactly how we fit them. Exemptions are set by each water company and at least one restricts mains-fed drippers outright, so check yours rather than take our word for it. Sedum survives a normal British summer unaided; irrigation is for the run of hot weeks that now turns up most years, and for lavender in a shallow south-facing trough, which dries out far faster than the same plant would in the ground.

What you get. Steel anchors bolted through the base into the slab beneath, so a bike is locked to the concrete foundation.

What it needs. A solid base — concrete, paving on a proper sub-base, or the footings we pour.

It is the cheapest thing on this list and the one a thief actually cares about. Can also be fixed to the store frame, if required.

What you get. An open-topped bay at one end, sized for two 240L wheelie bins with the lids clearing the roof line.

What it needs. Enough run. On a short unit the bay comes out of the bike space rather than adding to the length.

Bins are the reason most people finally do something about the front garden. Worth measuring yours — councils vary and some now issue a third.

What you get. An annual visit: inspection, hinge and lock service, rust touch-up where needed, planting cut back and re-seeded, and priority call-out for the rest of the year.

What it needs. Nothing.

Renews annually at the same rate and you can cancel any time. The 10-year manufacturing guarantee stands either way — MewsCare is maintenance, not an extended warranty, and we would rather say so than let it look like one.

What you get. 44mm x 19mm vertical sapele hardwood slats on a powder-coated steel frame.

What it needs. Oil every couple of years to hold the colour, or leave it to silver. Life expectancy is longest with regular treatment.

Sapele is a durable, dense West African hardwood with good natural resistance to rot, decay and insects, and it is harder than mahogany. Fitted as vertical slats that shed water, it typically lasts 30 years or more, and longer with regular oiling. Timber is not covered by the 10-year manufacturing guarantee.

What you get. Powder-coated to any RAL colour rather than our standard RAL 7016 Anthracite Grey, RAL 9003 Signal White, RAL 6021 Pale Green or RAL 9005 Jet Black.

What it needs. Just the colour code or name that we are matching. Farrow and Ball, Railings, no issue.

We bring samples to the survey. Choosing a colour off a screen is how people end up with something that fights the brickwork.

What you get. Timber slats laid over the roof tray to match the cladding, instead of planting.

What it needs. Nothing.

Lower maintenance than a planted roof, but it loses you the planning argument that a green roof gives you. Worth thinking about if consent is likely to be tight.