Patios in Breamore, working under the eaves
Thatch has no gutter, so the water lands in a line on the ground, and where you stop the paving matters more than what you pave with.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
A thatched roof has no gutter. Rain runs off the reed, clears the wall by a good foot or more and lands in a line on the ground below. Lay slabs tight to a cob or brick wall under thatch and you have built a splashback that throws water straight back at the building.
So the calls here are about the strip next to the house as much as the terrace itself. Paving that has sunk and now sits wet along the wall. A gravel margin that has silted up and stopped draining. And slabs eroded and stained in a neat line where the drip off the eaves has been hitting them for years.
We come and look at where the water actually lands before anything is designed. Then you get a written itemised quote with the dig, the muck away, the sub base, the drainage, the edgings, the slabs and the jointing on separate lines. The site visit and the quote are free.
The work
Paving under a deep thatched eaves
Clearing the ground. The old surface, its bedding and any old concrete are broken out and excavated to a firm formation. Along the drip line there is usually a channel of washed out, saturated ground that has to come out with the rest. Spoil, roots and rubble go by the load.
The drip line strip. Under the eaves we do not pave tight to the wall. A margin of open graded gravel over a geotextile, or a slot drain running the length of the elevation, takes the drip, soaks up the splash and lets the base of the wall breathe. On a cob or soft brick wall that strip is the single most valuable part of the job.
The sub base. MOT Type 1 in thin lifts, whacked to full compaction, carried past the edge of the paving, with a separator underneath on soft ground. The valley ground here is soft in places, and an under compacted base under a terrace people use daily starts to settle within a couple of years.
Full mortar bed. Every slab on a full wet bed with a slurry primer painted on the back. Dabs leave voids, voids fill with water and the frost lifts corners. Near a thatched elevation there is more water about than anywhere else in the garden, so the bedding has to be right.
What we lay. Porcelain is calibrated, takes up no water, does not stain and copes with a constant drip better than anything. Riven sandstone looks right against an old cottage and is porous, so it will darken under the eaves. Limestone marks. Granite is hard wearing and unforgiving to cut. Travertine we would not put under thatch at all.
Levels against an old wall. Paving falls away from the house and finishes at least two courses below the DPC, and on a cottage of this age there may be no damp course to find, in which case the level comes off the floor inside. Approved Document C is the reference for why that matters on a solid wall.
Where the water goes. The drip line has to reach somewhere. That is normally a channel and a gully to an outfall, or a soakaway sited well clear of the footings where the ground will take the runoff. A permeable build up over open graded stone is the other route and it keeps everything on your own land.
Edges, steps and jointing. A haunched edging or kerb at the lawn, a retaining edge with coping where a level is held, and steps with equal risers. Joints get a brush in resin compound worked wet and tooled off, or hand pointing on old stonework. The repairs are the usual list: lifted or rocking slabs, a sunk corner, cracked stone, algae along the shaded side, efflorescence on new sandstone and staining down the drip line.
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.
The village is a conservation area with 63 listed entries around it, so appearance is controlled and work touching a listed building needs consent in its own right. Ordinary ground level paving in a back garden is still normally permitted development and needs no planning permission, and building control comes in only where a retaining structure is built. The interactive property map shows the boundaries.
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 thatched cottage with a narrow approach, an estate house with a yard, and a modern property with a gated drive 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.
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. If the wall under the eaves has gone dark and soft at the base, that is worth a call before the paving is even discussed. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Thatch throws its water at your patio
A tiled roof ends in a gutter. A thatched roof does not. The reed is laid thick and it overhangs, so rainwater leaves the roof well out from the wall and falls as a line onto whatever is underneath. In a heavy shower that is a surprising amount of water arriving in a narrow strip, over and over again in the same place.
Pave right up to the wall with a hard, sealed surface and two things happen. The drip hammers the same slabs until they erode and stain, and every drop that hits bounces back onto the bottom of the wall. On cob, soft brick or lime pointed stonework that constant splash is what takes the face off. The patio has become a problem for the building rather than an improvement to the garden.
The answer is old and it works. Leave the drip line unpaved. A margin of open graded gravel over a geotextile, or a slot drain, running the full length of the elevation, absorbs the fall, stops the splash and lets the wall dry. The paving starts beyond it and falls away from the house. It costs a little of the terrace and it saves the wall, and on a listed cottage that is not a close decision.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Breamore, Woodgreen, Hale and the villages along the Avon, broadly SP6, under New Forest District 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
Breamore questions we get asked
Should paving go right up to the wall of a thatched cottage?
No. Leave the drip line unpaved. A margin of open gravel over a geotextile, or a slot drain, takes the water off the thatch and stops it splashing back at the wall. Slabs tight to the wall under thatch is the one detail we always argue about.
What has eroded a line across my slabs next to the house?
The drip off the eaves. It lands in the same place every shower and works on the surface until it pits and stains. Porcelain resists it far better than a porous stone, but the real fix is not paving that strip at all.
Can a patio damage a cob wall?
It can. A hard surface tight to the wall bounces rain back onto the base of it, and cob does not like being kept wet. Add a level built up over the years and you have wet ground against a wall with no damp course, which is how the face starts to go.
Does the terrace need consent if the cottage is listed?
Work to a listed building needs consent in its own right, and that can include what is done immediately around it. An ordinary patio further down the garden usually does not. We say which you have at the quote rather than after we have started.
How wide should the gravel margin be?
Wide enough to catch the drip, which means it is set by how far the thatch overhangs rather than by a standard figure. We stand outside in the rain if we get the chance, or read the line the water has already worn on the ground.
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Find out where your paving should stop
Thomas comes out, reads where the water lands and prices the drip margin, the drainage and the paving in writing. The visit and the quote are free.