Patios in Bearwood, and the ground underneath
The gardens here went in with the houses in the 1980s, and what the builders left behind is still the reason most patios on this estate have tilted.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Bearwood went up in one go in the 1980s, and the gardens went in with the houses. Under the turf on most of these plots there is a thin skim of topsoil sitting on whatever the site was left with, which is why so many patios here have settled unevenly rather than worn out.
The usual reasons people ring: slabs that have dropped in one area and stayed put in another, a terrace that has parted company with the house wall, or an old concrete base that has cracked along a line and started to tilt.
We lift a slab, dig a small trial hole and find out what the paving has actually been sitting on. That is a twenty minute job and it decides everything else. Then you get a written itemised quote with the dig, the muck away, the sub base, the paving and the jointing on separate lines. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
What we find under an eighties garden, and what we do about it
Digging out to something solid. On an 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. We are registered to carry waste, and 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. 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.
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.
There is no conservation area here and the handful of listed entries are away from the housing, so a patio in a Bearwood back garden is ordinary permitted development and the paving is your choice. Two things still catch people out. A raised platform more than 300mm above the ground is not permitted development, and a boundary or retaining wall has its own height limits, which Planning Portal guidance on garden walls explains. We flag either before it becomes a problem.
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 mid terrace on the estate with a shared path, a detached house with a gate wide enough for a micro digger, and a bungalow with the garden behind a garage are three different jobs before anything is dug. 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. Bearwood is about four miles from us, so we can usually get out within a couple of days. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Ground that was made, not grown
When an estate goes up, the gardens are the last thing anybody thinks about. Levels get pushed around with a machine, the leftovers of the build get spread rather than carted away, and a lorry load of topsoil goes over the top before the turf arrives. Forty years later that is exactly what we find under the paving: a soft, mixed layer that has been slowly consolidating ever since.
It matters because settlement is not even. One end of a terrace sits on undisturbed ground and the other sits over a filled trench or a buried spoil heap, so the patio does not sink, it tilts. That is why re-laying the slabs on their existing base almost never lasts here. The movement is underneath.
So on this estate, ask anybody quoting how deep they intend to dig and what they expect to find. A trial hole costs almost nothing and tells you whether you are buying a straightforward patio or a deeper dig with more muck away. It is far better to know that before the quote than after the machine arrives.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Bearwood, the Magna Road side, Kinson and out towards Canford Heath, broadly BH11, under Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 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
Bearwood questions we get asked
One corner has settled and the rest has not. Why?
Because the ground under it is not the same all the way across. On an estate garden one end is often over a filled service trench or spread building spoil. It consolidates, the other end does not, and the paving tilts.
Can you just re-lay my existing slabs?
If the base is sound, yes, and it saves a good deal. Around here the base is usually the problem, so re-laying good slabs on a rebuilt base is the common answer. We will tell you honestly which of the two you have after a trial hole.
How deep does the dig actually need to be?
It depends on what turns up. A patio that only carries people needs less than a drive, but it still has to sit on ground that will not move. On made ground that can mean going down further than the usual figures, and that is priced by the load.
Will a digger fit through my side gate?
A micro digger goes through a standard 900mm gate opening, and on most of these plots that is what we use. Where it will not fit, the dig goes out by barrow, which is slower and shows as its own line on the quote rather than being hidden.
Is porcelain worth the extra over sandstone?
On a shaded or north facing terrace, usually yes, because it takes almost no water and stays much cleaner. In open sun where you like the warmer colour, good sandstone is a perfectly sound choice as long as the base under it is right.
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Find out what your paving is sitting on
Thomas comes out, lifts a slab, digs a trial hole and prices the dig, the base and the paving in writing. The visit and the quote are free.