[Closed] Laying a patio

How is Mrs sammaratti ?

Relate?

It doesn't necessarily have to slope away. It's all about levels and drainage. What we thinking material wise?

No idea, I was just Guna see what I liked and what was affordable.

What do I need to know drainage wise?

Very good Righog. Took me a moment to get it though

You will need to dig down then pack and flatten the ground and add your slope. this is done with either hardcore or better Dolomite. The slope can go either way as long as you have drainage at the lower end this can often be the house side utilising a down pipe drain. Better still would be to incorporate some form of soak away in the design ( along with proper drainage) perhaps a combination of slabs and gravel.

Hiring a machine like this will save your back hen laying slabs, ( thi is a fancy one )

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Edit : It's bloody hard work takes ages and can get expensive if you do it properly. Doing it DIY will save you around 50% in money and cost you a good few days hard work.

[url= http://www.pavingexpert.com ]paving expert[/url] has everything you need to know.

A 150mm excavation is a good start, you'll need a whacker plate to flatten every layer as you go. Get a skip for the spoils and be prepared for a lot of work.

Top tips -
-Corners should only have 3 slab seams maximum for a pro finish.
-Check levels and spend a lot of time getting things perfectly even.
-DON'T do point mortaring... make sure every slab sits fully supported on a bed of mortar.
-Use a wooden baton to tamp down slabs before they set for a nice smooth even finish.
-Make sure you have some nice edging stones, set within a deeper base than the rest of the patio.
-Consider maintenance and sealing.

Thanks all for some good tips

Glasdowan - please could you explain about the the three slabs on the edges and also what point mortaring is?

Oh and also why the edges need o be deeper?

The graft does not scare me just want to make sure i do it right. Proper preparation prevents piss poor performance and all that jazz.

P.S I was quoted £3.5k for a company to do it, which seems steep to me as its only around 60m2 so not huge

You could do a Concrete pad and use corner clips a bit like tile spacers. no weeds, good drainage doesn't get slippy. No faffing about levelling individual slabs. Dunno what they are called but Google will find them.

Laying artificial turf is easy enough if you get it drunk first.
Don't lay patios though, you'll never get rid of them.

Right how do I post pictures?

I did a 5m X 4m patio a couple of years ago. Did all the groundwork myself (digging, clearing, levelling, hardcore etc)then got someone in to do the slabs. Saved loadable doing the bulk of the work myself.
Might be an option if you're not sure on laying the slabs yourself..

Laying flags/slabs on mortar is a sure way of having them crack later on ! .
Sharp sand mixed with cement { dry mix } is how you lay flags/slabs ....

3.5k for 60m2 sounds like a fair price. Don't skimp on the paving itself as it's going to take as much work to dig, level and lay some crap concrete slabs as it is to do proper stone.

The price sounds fair. I've just been quoted 3.5K for the 40m2 drive and a further 1.5k for the 20m2 patio + VAT.

I think your brave doing 60m2 if you've never done one before, it's very hard work and you'll regret the time and effort needed if you get it wrong.
As above do as much of the ground work you can and get a pro to do the slab work.

I did the slabs for my greenhouse(6x12 massive ****er) and (custom 12 x4 to fit in a space) shed. It was horrific. I am pretty handy and do most building/diy stuff myself but you dont know pain till you lift a 3x2 slab, which is the best park of 100kg for the 10th time as it just wont level.

Big slabs are a pain but smaller ones (e.g. 450x450) are pretty easy to handle. Paving expert has all the details but dig down, bit of mot, full bed of mortar, lay the slabs. Use a string line and spirit level to get it level and straight. Not much too It but quite physical.

I used a semi dry mortar bed for mine.

Check the distance from damp proof course, on mine I'd already dug out about 8 cubic metres of virgin chalk by hand over three months as the garden sloped steeply upwards behind the house. I didn't want to dig down further and interfere with a drain so left a gap by the house and filled it with shingle which reduces splash and therefore the distances to the damp course. If I were to do it again I'd make the effort to do a grid/drain along the wall which looks neater and you don't get all the leaves collecting.

Half decent concrete slabs turned out to be the same price as blue limestone, the downside is they are different thicknesses so need an individual mortar bed for each one. Susceptible to staining when you mortar the joints so went with a resin sand type stuff that is pricy but you just sweep it into the joints which is very easy.

20 odd posts in and no one has mentioned building control, what's going on.
I'll throw one in for the real pavers out there SBR...

[url= http://www.pavingexpert.com/ ]www.pavingexpert.com[/url] is your friend.

I did about 20m^2 one last year on top of swampy clay. I didn't want to make a half-arsed job of it, so put down 150+ mm of MOT1 and then laid on wet mortar.

- I carried multiple tons of stuff down the steps from street level - hard work
- I rented a plate whacker from HSS to get the sub base level - essential
- I borrowed a cement mixer - saved a lot of time
- Pointing is a pain in the bum

End result was very solid, but it was hard work for a softie with an office job.

textbooktom - Member 

Laying flags/slabs on mortar is a sure way of having them crack later on ! .
Sharp sand mixed with cement { dry mix } is how you lay flags/slabs ....

POSTED 5 HOURS AGO #

Crockoshite, obviously sharp sand is better but your flags certainly won't crack even if you were to only put five dobs on each flag (2ftx2) and especially if you aren't even driving on it. But recommend a spread around outside of flag to help with pointing.

Honest answer. It's not that hard. Lots of manual labour but that's to be expected. First you need to establish a level and work from there. Keeping 150 down from damp is considered the holy grail but not paramount. A nice 1/100 fall away from the property is OK. Get down to decent ground. There is nothing wrong with clay. In fact I'm currently putting a 250m long shed on it so it's certainly fine if treated correctly. The key is to get it reduce dug and covered back over as soon as possible, therefore protecting it from the rain. Using a woven textile membrane between clay and stone is a very good proposal. You can shape your stone/Hardcore to suit your levels, it's a lot easier to do it this way than trying to do it within your slab bedding material. Do this only once, stoning up is underestimated by many a diyer but can save you loads of time and money if you get it right the first time. Once you've done all this post back up and we can talk slabbing 😉