[Closed] Garden Patio ideas.

Wife under it then get cheap pavers?

thats excessive. Do you by chance have a slightly larger house than most as you are probably getting "big house tax" from the builders/pavers. Even at £40m2, double that for laying it, ballast etc you're still under £5K.

That said depends on how much remedial work is needed. Even at labour rates of £150 + £220 for the man and digger - 5-7 days and then the paving - at the most 8K and that's pushing it.

I've had the same issue (not a humble brag, i built my own place and maexed out the plot - finishing it is beyond my means). Ever time i've looked to get someone into do something as a fixed price theyt try to bend me over so end up having to do it myself (with help from very good friends), just takes a lot longer.

Driveway is the same - a number of poeple wanted 50-100% more than others for the same job.. boils my pis.

We are still waiting on a few quotes to come back but a lot of them are saying the paving is where the cost is as its really expensive?

That's absolute BS. Decent budget-end sandstone is circa £30/sqm. Higher end stuff is naturally more, as is porcelain, slate etc.

Type 1 sub base isn't expensive, but you'll need a lot of it, say 12-15 tonnes.

A lot of the cost is in the labour, especially if they're going to rip out existing soil/rubbles/pavers/shite, skip it and then barrow in all that sub base etc.

£10k still expensive IMO.

We're were in a similar boat last summer. Quotes for patio, fencing and pergolas were insane (we're in Surrey so no surprise). I'm currently ripping out existing fencing and patio and doing the whole lot myself with some occasional help from a mate.

Also, a lot of builders/landscapers are flat out and booked up for weeks/months. Some of those will no doubt hike their price up because they don't 'need' the work.

we're just doing another part of the garden as another patio. It was the old garage, so the slab was already there. But I bought the indian sandstone. Roughly 19.2 sq m (annoyingly the stone pack was 18.74 sq m....but i have some spare from another go)

£370 for materials. £200 for labour

Slabs cost £460? https://www.lsd.co.uk/indian-sandstone-paving-raj-green-patio-pack-calibrated

but - as i say, we already have the base

Part of pulling up decking, and putting a pitched roof on the pergola. £3k all in (plus me buying the stone)

Something like this? The grapevine was already there and the only "soil" brought in and out was a couple of tonnes of rubble removed to level the areas, and about the same of hardcore to build it up.

£5.5k (no VAT on the labour) including removing 1 transit tipper full of rubble/soil and replacing it with one of hardcore.

We had 3 quotes, they ranged from that to about £10k.

Rule of thumb, if they came in a new-ish pickup tuck with company polo shirts they quoted more. The guys that did it had a very battered transit tipper and didn't wear shirts (it was Summer'19).

I'm going to say this is the lockdown tax effect, everyone wants a decent garden space hence why your getting fleeced

My neighbours have tried to do a patio on the cheap by doing a lot of the labouring themselves and using another neighbour as the builder. The ‘builder’ laid the slabs using dot and dabs of cement rather than just on sand or a full cement screed. The slabs soaked up the minerals in the cement giving a weird stained pattern all over. Neighbours have now lifted the stained slabs themselves, bought a second batch of new slabs, and the whole thing is being re-laid. Oops. Your quotes sound pretty high, but there may be a cost to trying to do it on the cheap too!

I’m going to say this is the lockdown tax effect, everyone wants a decent garden space hence why your getting fleeced

Also bear in mind that lockdown has been very different for different demographics.

If you're middle-income, working from home, not been on holiday for 2 years, not bought a new car because it's going nowhere. You've got a lot of spare cash to spend on things like landscaping and extensions and builders and landscapers are subsequently very busy!

Cheers all, just as I suspected.

The garden is only 8 or 9 fence panels long and tapers from full house width to three panels wide at the bottom.

I think part of the problem is that we had our drive done back in 2019 and everyone says how great it looks and how it must have been expensive etc so companies are seeing that and thinking we are made of money.

The drive .....

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Budget ran out for the Monkey Puzzle then!? 🤣

Budget ran out for the Monkey Puzzle then!?

Nah we had it in a pot. Its double the size now:)

@renton - Your Stonehenge is even worse than Spinal Tap's 😀

I spent a decade or so as a garden designer and the one constant barrier is that people see the TV shows and get the idea that you can do a 200m2 garden for 500 quid and a packet of digestives. There's also an attitude that expensive contractors are somehow a rip off, but often their approach and workmanship is what drives the price. Often the client doesn't care, but you can compare it to taking a pattern and some fabric to different tailors, they may produce something that looks similar at first glance but if you look at the details you'll see the difference.

is that one of those resin drives ?

A few of the flash buggers round here have them too .. 🙂

I had Indian sandstone laid about 3 months ago. Wouldnt use it again. It shows every bit of dirt and marks. Not very impressed with it tbh. Nothing to do with how its laid as thats fine. I just find it very high maintenance.

I had Indian sandstone laid about 3 months ago. Wouldnt use it again. It shows every bit of dirt and marks. Not very impressed with it tbh. Nothing to do with how its laid as thats fine. I just find it very high maintenance

is this also in part if you used the rough cut stuff. I find the polished off stuff when treated is quite good.

Also, a lot of companies put me off resin drives, especially pourous ones if youve got lots of trees aroun you - apparantly they clog up pretty badly and alos tear up under wheels if it'sa tight circle.

The drive …..

I am Groot.

is that one of those resin drives ?

No mate it's block paved.

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Have you never played Tetris before?

In the middle of doing our garden now. We ordered porcelain tiles at £23/m, but by the pack - we're very lucky in that the design we liked came in 64 tile packs, and we need 63!

pavingsuperstore.co.uk had loads of stuff around the mid £20s/m

Whilst we're all here - I'm trying to keep the costs down. Do I really need 100mm of hardcore then 50mm of mortar? The mortar alone would cost a fair few hundred. Our ground is glacial till which is basically the stuff you'd buy in bags in the shop labelled mot sub base only with more large boulders, so I reckon I'm going to just level it, tamp it down hard and use full contact mortar.

thepurist
Full Member
@renton – Your Stonehenge is even worse than Spinal Tap’s 😀

I spent a decade or so as a garden designer and the one constant barrier is that people see the TV shows and get the idea that you can do a 200m2 garden for 500 quid and a packet of digestives. There’s also an attitude that expensive contractors are somehow a rip off, but often their approach and workmanship is what drives the price. Often the client doesn’t care, but you can compare it to taking a pattern and some fabric to different tailors, they may produce something that looks similar at first glance but if you look at the details you’ll see the difference.

Posted 4 hours ago

This^

Moon on a stick

I get what you are saying but the drive is bigger than the garden and cost less than some of the quotes I'm getting for the garden.

But that was in the past when Covid wasn't here. What has Covid affected?....well the supply of building materials, the supply of labour, a new increased demand from people who previously didn't think of gardens as outdoor rooms. Etc. Etc.......

Ive just done 40sq Meters
Stone was £1040 delivered
https://www.cheshiregardenproducts.co.uk/store/Mint-Ivory-Sawn-Smooth-Honed-Sandstone-900×600-–-20m²-Pack-p143319088

On the base went 4 tons of stone plus sand and cement which was about £400

I helped the BIL and he charges £150 a day and it took us 9.5 days = £1420

Overall about £3K but labour would have been more without me working with him so double that.

No mate it’s block paved.

That looks very tidy, but have you spotted the rude word hidden in the paving yet?