Patios in Bryanston, working around mature trees
Parkland trees mean roots in the top of the soil, and a patio dug the standard way goes straight through them.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Gardens in Bryanston tend to come with mature trees in them or right next door, and that is the first thing we look at rather than the last. Where a patio is going in under a big beech or a lime, the roots decide the dig, the build up and sometimes the shape of the terrace.
The usual reasons people ring. Paving that has been pushed up into a ridge by a root running under it. A terrace green and slippery all winter under a canopy. And a bare lawn where somebody wants a proper sitting out area and has been told they cannot dig near the tree.
We come out, look at what is growing near the proposed patio, dig a trial hole away from the root plate and take levels off the house. Then you get a written itemised quote with the dig, the muck away, the sub base, the edgings, the slabs, the drainage and the jointing on separate lines. The site visit and the quote are free.
The jobs
Laying a terrace where there are roots in the ground
Finding out what is under there. Before anything is priced we open a trial hole. Old concrete, a buried path, made ground and roots all change the job, and finding them on the first morning of the dig is the expensive way. Spoil is excavated and taken away by the load.
Digging near a tree. A mature tree feeds through fine roots in the top of the soil, spread wider than the branches suggest. Cutting through them for a full depth excavation can kill the tree slowly and destabilise it quickly. So near a big tree we dig by hand, keep the depth shallow and bridge over anything structural.
The sub base. Away from roots it is MOT Type 1 compacted in thin lifts and carried past the edge of the paving. Over a root zone the answer is a shallower build up on a geotextile separator, sometimes a no dig construction that sits on the existing ground rather than in it, so the terrace floats over the roots.
Full bed rather than dabs. Every slab is laid on a full wet mortar bed with a slurry primer on the back. Dabs leave voids under the stone, the voids fill and freeze, and over a root zone where the ground moves anyway a dabbed slab starts rocking almost immediately.
Stone and porcelain. Porcelain is calibrated to a constant thickness, takes up no water and does not stain, and the textured grades keep their grip under a canopy. Sandstone is riven and warm and needs bedding slab by slab. Limestone is softer in colour and marks, granite is the hardest wearing, and travertine belongs somewhere open and sunny.
Falls, levels and the house. The terrace falls away from the building and finishes at least two courses below the DPC, and where a threshold is too low we dig down rather than build up. Approved Document C explains what bridging a damp course does to a wall.
Edges, steps and drainage. A haunched edging or kerb where paving meets lawn, a retaining edge and coping where a level is held back, and steps with equal risers. Water goes to a channel and a gully with an outfall, or to a soakaway well clear of house and tree, and a permeable build up over open graded stone keeps runoff on your ground.
Jointing and repairs. A brush in compound worked wet and tooled off, or hand pointing on an older stone terrace. The repair list here is short and predictable: slabs lifted by a root, a bay sunk where fill has settled, cracked stone, algae on the shaded half, efflorescence on new sandstone and staining under 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.
Paving at ground level in a back garden is normally permitted development and needs no planning permission, and building control only comes in where retaining structures are involved. The tree is the part to check first: in a conservation area you have to give the council written notice before cutting or lopping, and the conservation area recorded here is Blandford St Mary and Bryanston. Dorset Council holds the conservation area and listed building records.
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 house on the estate with vehicle access to the garden, a cottage with a narrow side path, and a terrace reached only through the building 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 a root has pushed a slab up into a ridge, photograph it before anybody tries to knock it back down. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Patios, mature trees and the roots you cannot see
The parkland planting around Bryanston means a lot of gardens here sit within reach of a big tree, and the roots that matter are not the thick ones you can see at the base. The feeding roots run in the top of the soil and spread well past the edge of the canopy, and a standard patio excavation goes straight through them.
That matters twice over. Cut enough of them and a tree can decline over several seasons or come down in a gale. And a tree left alive keeps growing, so paving laid tight on live roots gets lifted into ridges within a few years. Neither is obvious when you are standing on a lawn.
So near a tree we change the construction rather than the tree. The dig is done by hand and kept shallow, roots over a certain size are bridged rather than cut, the build up sits on a geotextile separator, and the terrace is sometimes pulled a few feet away from the trunk where that costs nothing but a slightly different shape. If the tree is protected, and in a conservation area that is a real possibility, we say so before anything is booked.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Bryanston, Blandford St Mary, Blandford Forum and the Stour valley villages either side, broadly DT11, under Dorset 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
Bryanston questions we get asked
Can a patio be laid over tree roots without harming the tree?
Often yes, if the construction changes. We hand dig, keep the excavation shallow, bridge over the roots that matter instead of cutting them and build up on a separator. What we will not do is take a machine through a root plate to gain a couple of inches of depth.
Why has my paving lifted into a ridge across the middle?
A root growing under it. The slab has nowhere to go but up. Re-laying the top buys a couple of seasons at most, so we lift the affected area, look at the root and decide whether to bridge it or move the line of the terrace.
Do I need permission before cutting a tree back to make room?
In a conservation area you must give the council written notice before cutting or lopping, and some trees are protected outright. It is a quick thing to check and an expensive thing to get wrong, so ask before anybody starts on it.
Will a terrace under a canopy always go green?
It will grow algae faster than an open one, because it stays damp and collects leaf litter. Textured porcelain sheds it better than a porous stone, filled joints give it nowhere to root, and a wash off once a year keeps on top of it.
Is a no dig patio as solid as a normal one?
For foot traffic, yes, when it is built properly on a compacted layer over a separator. We would only use it where a full depth dig would cost you the tree. Everywhere else the ordinary build up is better.
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Find out whether you can dig where you want the terrace
Thomas comes out, looks at what is growing near it, opens a trial hole and prices the work in writing. The visit and the quote are free.