Patios in Broadstone, cut into a slope

Cut and fill are the options. The first decision on any Broadstone slope is where the level sits. Cutting into the bank gives you solid ground to build on and produces spoil. Filling gives you a level quickly and produces a patio that settles for years afterwards. We cut wherever we can, and where filling cannot be avoided it goes in compacted in layers, not tipped.

Retaining edges and walls. Anything holding soil back is built on a footing, not bedded on sand. Low retaining courses are haunched in concrete; a taller wall wants a proper base, a drainage layer of clean stone behind it and weep holes or a land drain out to daylight. Water pressure behind a wall, not the soil, is what pushes most of them over.

Steps. On a slope the steps are the part you use every day and the part that gets skimped. Consistent rise and going, a footing under every flight, a bullnose or coping front so the edge reads clearly, and a slight fall on each tread so water does not sit and freeze on it.

The dig and the muck away. Cutting into a bank makes a lot of spoil, and on a Broadstone hillside plot it usually has to be barrowed uphill to the road. That is priced by the load and by the access, and it leaves with us.

Sub base and bedding. Geotextile membrane over cut subsoil, MOT Type 1 in compacted layers, then a full wet mortar bed with a slurry primer on the back of porcelain and dense stone. On a terrace built into a slope the base has to be right, because there is nothing holding the paving in place except the edge restraint.

Porcelain, sandstone, limestone and granite. Porcelain absorbs almost nothing and a textured face keeps its grip on a route that involves steps. Sandstone is warmer and easier to cut. Limestone marks with iron. Granite is the hardest wearing. Calibrated slabs sawn to one thickness lay far quicker than hand cut stone.

Where the water goes. On a slope the runoff arrives from above as well as falling on the paving. A channel drain along the top of a terrace intercepts what comes down the bank, and it needs a gully or a soakaway that will take it, judged against Approved Document H. Paving still falls away from the house and finishes two courses below the damp course.

Jointing and repairs. Joints brushed in with a two part compound and tooled off. Existing terraces get the same attention: re-bedding slabs that have crept, rebuilding a step that has dropped, re-pointing open joints, and clearing algae and efflorescence.

A Broadstone patio has no rate per square metre. The slabs are the part you choose, and usually the smallest part of the price.

Levels against the house. A patio has to finish below the damp proof course and fall away from the wall. Outside a bungalow with a low threshold, that can mean digging the garden down, adding a step or fitting a drainage channel at the door. Getting it wrong puts water into the house.

What comes out first. An old concrete slab, crazy paving, a raised bed or tree roots all have to be broken up and taken away. On clay the spoil is heavy and it is paid for by the load.

The base. Clay moves with the seasons, so a patio laid straight onto it on dabs of mortar rocks within a year or two. A proper sub base and a full bed under each slab cost more and last.

Access. A barrow down the side path is one job. Carrying every slab through the house is another. The work at height rules still apply to any raised terrace or retaining edge.

Ask anyone else what sub base they specify, whether the slabs go on a full bed or dabs, and where the water will go.

For patios we cover Broadstone, Dunyeats, Corfe Hills and the Merley side, 7.3 miles from our Boscombe base, with Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council as the planning authority. The business is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd (registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719). Before you book a visit in Broadstone, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Thomas Hannen runs it and comes to see the garden before he prices a single slab. You can find a verified customer's 10 out of 10 for us on Checkatrade. There is no charge for the visit, and the itemised written quote is free as well. A sloping front garden has the same problem, and a driveway in Broadstone cut into the bank needs its own retaining and drainage.

Most repairs in Broadstone 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.