Patios in Beacon Hill

Starting with what you actually want. With nothing designated over this settlement, the first conversation is about the patio rather than about permissions. How many people sit out, where the sun is at seven, whether a barbecue wants its own corner, and whether the lawn stays. That shapes the size, and the size shapes everything after it.

The dig and the muck away. Turf and topsoil, old concrete, a set of flags bedded on sand, roots and any made ground, all excavated to formation and taken off site. Spoil is priced by the load that leaves rather than by the metre it covered. Access on most plots here is good enough for machinery and a skip, which keeps that part sensible.

Levels against the house. We scrape back, chalk the DPC on the brickwork and set the finished paving two courses below it, falling away from the wall. Where a threshold has to stay flush for a wide door, a recessed channel does the job a step would otherwise do.

Base and bed. Geotextile membrane, MOT Type 1 hardcore compacted in layers, a sharp sand screed to level it, then a full bed of mortar under every slab with a slurry primer on the back. A proper mortar bed stays solid. Dabs go hollow, and a hollow slab is the one that ends up rocking, cracked and holding water two winters later.

The paving, and it really is your choice. Large format porcelain in a light grey, calibrated so every joint is even. Riven Indian sandstone, warm and hand cut. Limestone, granite for something dark and hard wearing, travertine if you can live with a surface that holds water. Nothing here is ruled out by a designation, so pick what you want to look at and we will lay samples out wet before you commit.

Edges, steps and retaining. The perimeter is held with a haunched kerb or an edging bedded in concrete, retaining walls sit on a proper footing with a coping over them, and a gravel border runs along the house wall to take splashback. Steps get set at a rise you can walk in the dark rather than whatever the level happened to leave.

Where the water goes. The fall runs off the house into an ACO channel, an existing gully or a soakaway set clear of the foundations, with a permeable build up where the runoff has nowhere to travel. This part is not optional and it is not a matter of taste, which is why it sits on the quote as its own line.

Jointing, and the patio you have now. Joints take a brush in resin compound, a grout slurry or hand pointing in mortar. Where a patio has only lifted or sunk in one bay, or turned slippery with algae and shown efflorescence and staining, we quote the clean, the re-joint or the lift and relay rather than a rebuild you do not need.

No rate per square metre, because the slabs are the part you choose and the smallest part of the price.

Getting to it. A modern plot with room for machinery and a skip, a cottage with a single narrow gate, and a house where the only route runs through the kitchen are three different jobs. 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.

We cover Beacon Hill, Sturminster Marshall, Henbury and the roads towards Lytchett Minster, broadly BH16, 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.