block paving, its edging, and man hole cover

[Dundonald]

Quick couple questions please.

1. I am having the front of my property block paved. The man hole on the front of our property was previously one of those big concrete ones (similar to the picture found here small company doing the block paving is suggesting that a recessed replacement man hole cover can't be used so instead he plans to use a simple alloy cover.

Is he feeding me bull? I'm concerned about the continuity break up in the appearance, and, the sheer ugliness of the cover.

1. Edging - the style of brick laying used is the basket hatch type. The brick laying has just begun. Unfortunately I've returned home to find no straight edging in place. The basket style placement has begun and the edges look untidy due to the small cutouts to make bricks fit. Am I correct in understanding the common method is to always use straight edging (mitre'ing corners to look more professional) and then inside the edging fill with appropriate style of laying?

Thanks, so far not a happy customer.

[Loner]

If the manhole shaft is built of brick, you can remove the concrete slab on top of it, and knock off as many courses of brick as you need, to get the top of the slab down to the required level. Then you can fit a new recessed cover... I did this myself, when paving my own patio.

[David]

In article , Dundonald writes

You should use the covers that takes the blocks in a recess, the blocks are then cut to match the pattern and the whole thing becomes less noticeable, done well these look great. The best way to do the edging is to do them straight as a border and then infill with your other pattern, TBH you should have sorted this out before the job was started...