Patios in Ashmore
Paving built for a high downland village, where the dig is flinty and the weather gets there first.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Two things make a patio in Ashmore different from one twenty minutes down the hill. What comes out of the hole, and what the weather does to what goes back in it. The village sits high on the chalk, and both the dig and the winter are harder here.
The calls are the usual ones with a local accent. A terrace that has lifted at the joints after a run of hard frosts. Slabs that rock on a base that was never compacted properly through the flint. Efflorescence blooming white across new paving. And a shaded corner that goes green and stays green.
We come out, take a slab up, dig a trial hole to see what is actually under the garden, and take levels off the house. Then the work is priced in writing, itemised: the dig and the muck away, the sub base, the paving, the edging and steps, and the jointing, each on its own line. Both the site visit and the quote are free.
The work
What comes out of the ground, and what goes back
The dig. Digging on the downs means chalk with flint through it, and old concrete, sunken flags, a raised bed or roots on top of that. Flint is hard on a machine and hard on hand tools, so the excavation takes longer here than the area suggests. We dig to firm formation, and the spoil is loaded to a grab lorry or a skip and leaves with us rather than being spread round the garden.
The sub base. Chalk drains well when it is dry and turns to a paste when it is wet and worked, so we keep the formation covered, get the geotextile separator down and bring MOT Type 1 up in compacted layers of about 100mm. A base built on a churned chalk formation in February is a patio that moves in year one.
Porcelain. Calibrated twenty millimetre porcelain earns its place up here. It absorbs almost nothing, so there is no water in the slab for a frost to expand and split, and a textured finish keeps its grip through a wet, cold spell. Full bed of mortar over a slurry primed back, never dabs.
Stone. Sandstone is warm and forgiving and looks right beside flint and brick, but it is porous, so on an exposed plot it takes water in and a hard frost works on it. Limestone is more even and marks with iron. Granite is the densest and the most frost resistant of the three. Travertine is a poor choice at this height. Hand cut stone varies in thickness so the bed levels it; calibrated stone is sawn to a single depth.
Falls and the damp course. The paving falls away from the building and finishes two courses below the DPC where the garden allows, which is the point of Approved Document C. Water goes to a gully proved to run, a soakaway where the chalk will take it, which up here it often will, or a permeable build so the runoff stays on your ground.
Edges, steps and retaining. On sloping downland plots the level changes come first. Edging bedded and haunched in concrete, a coping to the retaining wall, a kerb line at the lawn, and a gravel border along the house wall to take the drip off the eaves.
Jointing. This is the frost line. A full, well compacted joint keeps water out of the bed; a joint filled short takes water in, freezes and lifts the slab at its corner. Stone is hand pointed in a matched mortar or given a brush in compound worked deep into the joint, and porcelain takes a grout made for dense units.
Repairs. Re-bedding rocking slabs, rebuilding a sunken bay, replacing cracked units, raking out failed jointing, and cleaning a green terrace and correcting the falls so it dries.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: excavation and muck away, the sub base, the falls and where water goes, edgings and steps, the slabs themselves, and jointing on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Ashmore has its own conservation area over the village and twenty six listed entries in the parish, so anything visible from the road, a boundary wall opened for access, or a tree cut to clear a terrace is a separate question from the paving. Dorset Council keeps the record of what is designated, and a patio is not building control work.
Cost
What decides the price of a patio
No rate per square metre, because the slabs are the part you choose and the smallest part of the price.
Getting to it. A cottage on the green with a narrow passage, a house with a gate wide enough for a micro digger, and a farmhouse with an open yard are three different jobs before any paving is chosen. Everything comes in and goes out through the garden, often through a side gate or the house. A patio you can barrow to directly is a different job from one where every slab is carried. The work at height rules still apply to the dig and the machinery.
What is coming out before anything goes down. An old concrete slab, a raised bed, tree roots or made ground all have to be dug out and taken away, and that is priced by the load rather than by the metre. The dig is where a patio quote is won or lost.
Falls, levels and the damp course. A patio has to fall away from the house and finish at least two courses below the damp proof course, and getting that right often means steps, a retaining edge or a drainage channel. Laying a new patio up against a wall at the wrong level is the single most expensive mistake on this kind of job.
Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the dig goes and what sub base is specified, whether the slabs are laid on a full wet bed or on dabs, what the falls are and where the water goes, whether edgings and steps are included, and what the jointing compound is. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.
If it has become a hazard
A patio that has lifted, sunk or turned slippery
Ring rather than use the form. A slab that has lifted at one corner or a step that has dropped is a trip, and a north facing patio in winter can be genuinely dangerous. We can usually lift and re-lay the worst of it quickly, then look properly at whether the base under the rest has gone. After a hard frost, send a photograph of the corners that have lifted, because that pattern tells us whether it is the joints or the base. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Height, frost and a flinty dig
Ashmore sits among the highest ground in this part of Cranborne Chase, and the difference that makes to a patio is not romantic, it is practical. Frost arrives earlier, stays longer and gets into anything holding water. A slab that has taken water in through an open joint, or a bed that is damp because the surface never dries, is doing the same thing a pothole does.
So the specification changes in three places. The material moves towards something dense, because porcelain and granite have nowhere to put the water. The joints get filled properly and compacted, because a short joint is the way in. And the falls are built to shed rather than to look level, because standing water is what freezes.
The dig is the other half of it. Chalk with flint through it is slow going, and it behaves differently wet and dry: it will take a soakaway readily where a clay garden would not, and it will turn to a slurry underfoot if you work an open formation in the rain. That is why we keep the excavation covered and get the stone in behind us as we go, and why we would rather move a start date than build a base on a formation that has been rained into.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Ashmore, Fontmell Magna, Compton Abbas and the villages along the chase, broadly the SP5 and SP7 border, under Dorset Council. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Ashmore questions we get asked
Why do the slabs lift at the corners after a frost?
Water has got into the joints and the bed, then expanded as it froze. It always shows at a corner first. Full joints and a surface that drains are what stop it.
Can we build straight onto the chalk without a sub base?
No. Chalk drains well, which helps, but it is not a sub base. It still wants excavating to a firm formation, a separator over it and compacted stone on top, or the paving settles into it.
Is a soakaway realistic in a garden up here?
More often than in the valleys, because chalk takes water. It still needs proving with a hole rather than assuming, and it has to sit far enough from the house.
What causes the white bloom on new paving?
Efflorescence: salts carried out of the bedding and the slab as it dries. It is not a defect, it weathers off over a season or two, and a proprietary cleaner shifts the rest.
Can you get a machine into a village garden here?
Usually a micro digger through a standard side gate. Where the access is a passage between cottages it is dug and barrowed by hand, and that time is priced as its own line.
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Find out what is under the garden before you buy
Thomas comes out, digs a trial hole, checks the falls and prices the dig, the base and the paving in writing. The visit and the quote are free.