Patios in Alderholt, levels before slabs

Reading the ground comes first. An Alderholt garden that drops half a metre across a terrace is a different job from a flat one. We set out where the level surface sits and how much has to be dug into the bank, before anybody talks about slabs.

The dig and the muck away. Cutting a terrace into a sloping garden in Alderholt moves a lot of material. Turf, topsoil, roots, made ground and old concrete get excavated out, and the spoil leaves in a skip or a grab lorry rather than being spread over the lawn to settle later.

The sub base. MOT type 1 in compacted layers, deeper on the filled side of a cut and fill terrace than on the dug side, because that is where settlement shows. Hardcore blinded off will do on a small area. A geotextile between subgrade and stone stops the two mixing on soft ground.

Retaining edges and coping. Where the ground is held back we build it properly: a footing, a retaining wall with a drainage layer and weep holes behind it, and a coping on top. A dry laid edging is not a retaining wall, and the difference shows the first wet winter.

Steps between levels. Full bed treads with an overhang so water drips clear of the riser, an even going and rise across the flight, and a handrail fixing built in where the drop needs one.

Porcelain paving. Calibrated, so every slab is the same thickness and the bed stays even, with almost no absorption and a slip rated finish. It suits the larger modern gardens in Alderholt and it stays clean without much doing to it.

Sandstone, limestone and granite. Riven sandstone for a softer look against brick, limestone or travertine for a flatter and more even surface, granite for step treads and a sett border. None is calibrated, so each slab gets bedded to its own thickness.

Full bed and jointing. A full wet mortar bed under every slab with a slurry primer on the back of porcelain, never dabs and never a sand screed. Joints get a resin grout brushed in while damp, or traditional pointing in mortar on riven stone.

Falls, the damp course and the drainage. The surface falls away from the house and finishes at least two courses below the damp proof course. Runoff goes to an ACO channel and a gully, or through a permeable build up into a soakaway at the bottom of the slope, never onto a neighbour's ground.

Repairs. Lifting and relaying a sunk bay, a rocking or cracked flag, rebuilding a retaining edge that has bowed, repointing joints washed out, and dealing with staining, efflorescence and a slippery green surface where a terrace sits in shade.

The slabs are what you see and choose, but they are rarely the biggest part of the bill. The dig. Alderholt is on sand, which drains freely but shifts unless the edges are held.

The dig for an Alderholt patio has to go down to firm ground and the sub-base has to be thick enough to spread the load, or the patio rocks within a couple of winters. An old concrete path, a flower bed or roots in the way all come out first, and the spoil is priced by the skip.

Carrying. Where a mini digger fits down the side, the dig is quick. Where every bag of sharp sand and every slab goes through a side gate by barrow, or up a bank, it takes longer. HSE guidance still applies to the machinery and any raised edge.

The damp course. The patio must fall away from the building and finish two or more courses beneath the damp proof course. On a garden that rises towards the house, that means digging down and adding a channel drain, and those details cost more than the paving.

How it is laid. Slabs on a full mortar bed stay put. Slabs on a few dabs of mortar rock and crack.

Put these to any other quote: full bed or dabs, how deep the sub-base goes, and where the rainwater ends up.

Alderholt is one of the few villages we cover with no conservation area, and its listed buildings, the church of St James among them, stand out on the edge. That is genuinely useful: the appearance of your paving is nobody's business but yours, and there is no consent to wait for.

The catch is that a lot of the gardens in Alderholt are on a slope, and a level patio on a sloping plot is half paving and half structure. Once you are holding ground back, height limits apply to the wall, and the wall itself has to be built for the load with a footing under it and drainage behind it. Ground water is the thing that pushes a garden wall over, not the soil.

So settle the level first, get the retaining priced as its own item, and choose the slabs last. That is why two quotes for the same sloping garden in Alderholt can be so far apart: one has priced a wall and the other an edging.

For patios we cover Alderholt, Daggons and Cripplestyle and the lanes out towards Cranborne and Verwood, with Dorset Council as the planning authority. It is 12.5 miles from our base in Boscombe. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Alderholt, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Thomas Hannen owns the firm and comes out to look at the garden and price the patio himself. A verified customer rated the work 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Coming to see the garden is free, and the written quote, set out line by line, costs nothing either. If the front slopes as well, the same levels question comes up on a driveway in Alderholt.

Most repairs in Alderholt need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.