Patios in Bearwood, and the ground underneath

Digging out to something solid comes first. On a Bearwood estate of this age the first spade is the informative one. Made ground, broken brick, buried timber and a stripe of subsoil are all normal finds, and none of them will carry paving. We dig past it to a formation we can compact, which sometimes means a deeper excavation than the brochures suggest.

Muck away. More depth means more spoil, and spoil is priced by the load rather than by the square metre. It goes out to a grab lorry or a covered skip and leaves with us. The duty of care on waste means every load has to be accounted for.

The sub base. Geotextile membrane over soft or mixed ground, then MOT Type 1 brought up in layers of no more than 100mm and compacted each time. That is the whole reason a patio stays flat. Hardcore tipped in one lift and rolled once looks identical on day one and is rocking within three winters.

Full bed, not dabs. Slabs are bedded on a full wet mortar bed, with a slurry primer on the back of porcelain and dense stone. Blobs of mortar under the corners leave voids, and voids are where water sits, frost works and slabs crack.

Porcelain, sandstone and granite. Porcelain is dense, takes almost no water and keeps its colour, and a textured finish holds grip in the wet. Sandstone is warmer and cheaper to cut but porous. Granite is the hardest wearing of the three. Calibrated slabs sawn to one thickness lay faster than hand cut stone, where the mortar bed has to take up the variation.

Falls and the damp proof course. Paving falls away from the house and finishes clear of the damp course, two brick courses down as Approved Document C sets out. Where a patio has been laid over an older one and crept up the wall, the level has to come back down, or a channel drain goes across the threshold and takes the runoff to a gully or a soakaway. On a small garden a permeable build with open joints can take the water instead.

Edgings, steps and retaining. Bearwood estate gardens often step down to a lawn or up to a shed base. Steps go off a footing with a coping or bullnose front, the border edging is haunched in concrete, and any course holding back soil gets a land drain behind it so the water pressure does not push it out of line.

Jointing and repairs. Joints get brushed in with a two part compound and tooled off. Where the base is sound we do the smaller jobs too: re-bedding a rocking slab, cutting out a cracked one, re-pointing joints that have washed out, and treating algae and efflorescence.

A patio is not priced per square metre here. The slabs you choose are rarely the biggest part of the bill.

How it gets in. A mid terrace with a shared rear path, a detached house whose side gate takes a micro digger, and a bungalow with the garden behind a garage each get the materials in differently in Bearwood. Carrying every slab and every bag of spoil through a house adds real time.

What the builders left. Gardens on estates of this age often have rubble, old concrete or made ground a spade's depth down. It all comes out by the load, and the loads are a line on the quote.

The clay under it. Bearwood's clay swells in winter and shrinks in summer, so the sub-base is compacted in thin layers, often over a geotextile, to stop slabs settling unevenly.

Height against the house. The finished paving has to stay two courses under the damp proof course and fall away from the wall. A garden that sits higher needs a step down, a retaining edge or a channel drain at the house.

How the slabs are bedded. We lay on a full mortar bed rather than dabs. Porcelain also needs a slurry primer on the back and a jointing compound made for it.

When you compare, ask what depth they will dig to and which sub-base, whether the slabs sit on a full bed or on dabs, where the water drains, and whether edgings and steps are included.

From our base in Boscombe, Bearwood is 5 miles. We lay patios here, on the Magna Road side, in Kinson and out towards Canford Heath, and the authority for this part of BH11 is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.

The business behind this page is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Measuring the garden and pricing the patio is done by the owner, Thomas Hannen, himself. On Checkatrade you will find a verified customer's 10 out of 10. We charge nothing to visit, and the written quote, which itemises everything, is free too. The same eighties fill sits under most front gardens here, so a driveway in Bearwood needs digging to firm ground too. Before you book a visit in Bearwood, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Bearwood 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.