Patios in Bransgore

Deciding where it should actually sit. Two in five houses in Bransgore are detached and the plots are generous, so the patio does not have to be against the back wall. We walk the garden with you, work out where the sun is at six and whether the ground there is firm or soft. A survey of the levels comes first and the paving last.

Against the house, or out in the garden. Against the wall you are tied to the damp proof course; we chalk the DPC on the brickwork and finish two courses below it, with the threshold detailed so nothing washes back to the door. Out in the garden that constraint goes and another arrives: no wall to fall away from and no gully, so the falls and the runoff are designed rather than assumed.

Topsoil, roots and what leaves the site. A lawn is not a base. Turf and topsoil are excavated to formation, and out in Bransgore that is often soft ground with roots through it. Old concrete and any made ground go the same way. Access is usually good enough for a machine, so the spoil leaves in a grab lorry or a skip rather than by barrow.

The base. Geotextile membrane, MOT Type 1 hardcore compacted in layers rather than tipped in one lift, a sand screed to level it, then a full bed of mortar under each slab with a slurry primer on the back. Dabs are quicker and they are why a slab ends up rocking, hollow and cracked. A proper mortar bed does not.

The paving. Porcelain is calibrated to a constant thickness and stays clean under trees. Indian sandstone is hand cut and suits an older brick elevation, limestone and granite wear hard, and travertine holds water. We bring samples and wet them, because dry paving in a yard is not the colour you will live with.

Edges with nothing to lean on. A patio in the middle of a lawn has no wall to restrain it, so the perimeter is held with a haunched kerb or an edging bedded in concrete, capped with a coping where it stands proud, and a gravel border run round for the mower. Steps and a low retaining wall follow the same rule.

Falls, and where the water is allowed to go. The surface falls at about one in eighty into an ACO channel, an existing gully or a soakaway set clear of any foundation. Where the runoff has nowhere to travel we build permeable, which is a different sub base rather than a different slab.

Jointing and the patio you already have. Joints take a brush in resin compound, a grout slurry or hand pointing in mortar. If your paving has only lifted or sunk in one bay we quote the lift and relay. If it is slippery with algae, or showing efflorescence and staining after a wet winter, that is cleaning and jointing rather than a rebuild.

The clay under the lawn matters. Bransgore ground is clay. It dries and cracks in a hot summer and takes up water again in winter. A patio on a thin base moves with it, and slabs rock and crack. A deeper dig and a well compacted sub-base cost more, but the slabs stay put. The spoil is heavy, so muck away is a bigger line than on sandy ground.

Falls and the damp course. The patio has to fall away from the house and finish below the damp proof course. On a bungalow with low patio doors that can mean digging lower than you expect, a step down, or a drainage channel across the doorway to a gully.

What has to come out. An old concrete slab, a raised bed or a root run from a tree near the house is dug out and taken away by the load before anything goes down.

The slabs and the bed. Porcelain needs a primer and a full wet bed of mortar. Natural sandstone is thicker and varies. Concrete flags are simpler. The bed is where a cheap job fails: slabs on five dabs of mortar rock within a year.

Ask any other quote for the depth of excavation and the sub-base, whether the slabs are on a full bed or dabs, and where the water will go.

Thomas Hannen's business does the work, and he comes to your garden himself to take the levels and price the patio. He is 5.6 miles away at the base in Boscombe. The work covers all of Bransgore, from Thorney Hill Road and Ringwood Road to Neacroft and Waterditch, in the New Forest District Council area.

Before you agree to anything, you can look up Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. A verified Checkatrade customer marked the firm 10 out of 10. The visit to measure the garden is free, and you get the written, itemised quote for nothing. Long plots here usually come with long drives, and a driveway in Bransgore can be priced on the same site visit if you ask. Before you book a visit in Bransgore, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Bransgore 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.