Patios in Branksome

Long, narrow back gardens. Behind many of the older terraces and semis the garden is long and slim, and the patio goes by the house.

On a Branksome patio the sound approach is to break out the old concrete, dig out any made ground, lay a type 1 MOT sub base compacted in layers, then bed the slabs on a full wet mortar bed rather than dabs, so there are no hollows to crack. Where the garden rises away from the house, we cut a level terrace with a low retaining edge and a step or two up to the lawn.

Porcelain, sandstone or limestone. Porcelain barely takes on water, stays cleaner and is less slippery in shade, which matters in a garden overlooked by the house next door. It needs a slurry primer on the back to bond. Indian sandstone and limestone look softer and warmer but grow algae in a garden that stays damp. Calibrated slabs, all the same thickness, lay truer and faster than riven stone, and granite setts make a hard wearing edging or border.

Getting materials in. A Branksome terrace with no side gate means every slab, every bag and all the spoil goes through the house by hand or barrow. We sheet the hall and the route, and the quote allows the time. Where there is a side gate or a rear lane, a skip and a small digger may fit, which shortens the job.

Shared gardens. At a block or a house split into flats, the garden paving is usually the freeholder's, and it has usually been walked on by a lot of people for a long time. Sunk or rocking slabs are lifted, the base rebuilt and compacted, and the paving relaid with a channel drain and gully where the water used to sit. The instruction has to come from whoever manages the building, which is the local point below.

Repairs and jointing. A cracked or lifted slab, a step that has dropped, joints that have washed out and filled with weeds, or efflorescence and algae staining. Loose slabs are lifted and rebedded, and the joints raked out and refilled with a brush in jointing compound or a mortar pointing that suits the stone.

One person to ring from the first visit to the last. 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.

No Branksome garden 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.

A patio at ground level behind a house needs no planning permission, as long as it drains to the garden or is permeable, which is how we lay them. A raised patio is a different question, and a block of flats has no householder permitted development rights at all, so a new shared terrace there can need planning. If you are in the Brunstead Road conservation area (the council keeps the list and maps), check before changing anything at the front.

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. At a Branksome block, tape off the lifted slab and tell the managing agent in writing, because the repair has to be ordered by them. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.

Call now: 07435 839745

Nearby places we also cover for patios, with straight-line distances from Branksome, and the other trades we offer in Branksome itself.

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