Patios in Ferndown, built for sandy ground
The heath soil under these gardens drains beautifully and holds nothing in place, so the edgings and the compaction decide how long a terrace stays flat.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Ferndown was built on heathland, and the ground under most of its gardens is sand. That is good news and bad news for a patio. Rain disappears into it, so drainage is rarely the problem here. But sand does not hold a shape, so the edges and the compaction do all the work.
The usual faults on sand: an edging that has rolled outwards and let the paving spread, slabs that have dropped along one side of a terrace, and joints that keep opening no matter how often they are pointed.
All of those are edge and base failures instead of paving failures. We dig a trial hole in your Ferndown garden, see how far down the sand goes and check what the existing edge restraint is actually made of. Then you get a written itemised quote with the dig, the base, the edgings, the paving and the jointing on separate lines. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Building on sand, and making the edges hold
Edgings, and why they matter more here. On sandy Ferndown ground there is nothing holding a patio in from the sides except the restraint you build. Every border edging is bedded and haunched in concrete along its back, not butted against loose sand. Without that the edge rolls out over a few winters and the whole terrace loosens behind it.
Digging in sand. The sides of a Ferndown excavation in dry sand collapse as you dig, so a neat trench on Monday is a slope by Wednesday. It means battering the sides or working in shorter runs, and it means the excavation is a little bigger than the finished patio. That is time and it is spoil, and it belongs on the quote rather than as a surprise.
Compaction. Sand compacts well and it also runs. MOT Type 1 goes in over a geotextile membrane in layers of no more than 100mm, each one whacked, because the membrane is what stops the base stone gradually working down into the sand and thinning out.
Full bed laying. Slabs go on a full wet mortar bed with a slurry primer painted onto the back of porcelain and dense stone. On free draining ground it is tempting to lay on sand and be done, and that is exactly the build that ends up rocking.
Porcelain, sandstone, limestone and granite. Porcelain takes almost no water, keeps its colour and holds grip when textured. Sandstone is warm and easy to cut but porous. Limestone is quieter and marks with iron. Granite is the hardest wearing. Calibrated slabs sawn to one thickness lay much faster than hand cut stone.
Drainage, which is the easy part here. Sand takes water readily, so a soakaway usually works well and a permeable build with open joints over a free draining base is very much at home on this ground, BS 7533-13 being the reference for how it is put together. Where a channel drain is needed to pick the runoff up, Approved Document H covers whether it can go to a gully or has to find a soakaway of its own.
Levels and steps. Paving falls away from the house and finishes two brick courses below the damp course, the level Approved Document C works to, which on the bungalows in Ferndown often means dropping the terrace rather than building it up. Steps go off a footing with a coping or bullnose front.
Jointing and repairs. Joints brushed in with a two part compound and tooled off. We also re-set edgings that have moved, re-bed slabs that have lifted or sunk, cut out cracked ones, re-point washed out joints and clear algae and efflorescence.
How it runs
Laying a patio off the back of the house
Thomas comes round to see the Ferndown garden, checks the height of the damp proof course by the back door, and asks what size and what paving you have in mind. His written quote has a line each for excavation, carting the muck away, a compacted sub base, setting the falls so water runs off, edgings and any steps, the slabs, and the jointing. Thomas prices the whole patio and stays your contact until it is finished.
Most Ferndown bungalows open onto the garden through a back door or patio doors, and the new surface has to sit below that threshold, so we set that level first. The usual way in is a side gate. For a ground floor flat with its own garden, we check with the managing agent before starting. Barrows run over boards to spare the lawn, the base is compacted, and the slabs are bedded on full mortar. No trench is left open at night, the lawn is raked and tidied every evening, and the spoil goes with us. Old footings or a drain in the way are shown to you, with the cost, before we carry on.
With no conservation area over its streets and only a few listed buildings, Holy Cross Abbey at Stapehill among them, the paving you choose is normally up to you. Ordinary permitted development still applies, so the limits to watch are a raised platform more than 300mm above the ground, which needs planning permission, and a boundary wall over the height limits that Planning Portal guidance on garden walls sets out. Dorset Council is the authority.
Cost
Slabs, sub base and falls: what a patio price covers
Patios are not priced by the square metre here. The paving you pick is the smallest share of the cost.
Carrying in. A detached bungalow with a drive up to the side gate is easy. A flat with a small walled garden, or a house reached only by a shared passage, means every slab and bag goes in by hand.
Digging out. Old concrete, a raised bed, roots or rubble fill all have to come out and be carted away, and each load is priced.
Height at the door. The finished surface must slope away from the house and stay a couple of brick courses beneath the damp proof course. With a low threshold on a bungalow, that can mean digging deeper, putting in a step or adding a channel drain.
Ground. Where the soil moves with the seasons, a stiffer sub base helps, and water has to be taken away rather than left to sink in by the wall.
Paving. Porcelain, sandstone and concrete slabs each cut and bed differently, and the jointing compound changes the figure.
Ask rival firms how deep they dig and what goes underneath, whether slabs sit on a full mortar bed or just on dabs, which way the falls run, and whether edgings and steps are included.
If it has become a hazard
Lifted slabs or a slippery patio by the back door
Call rather than use the form. A slab rocking up at a corner, or a sunken step, will catch someone, and a Ferndown patio facing north goes slick in winter. Stand a heavy pot on the loose slab and keep everyone off the step.
Behind a bungalow, a dropped slab by the back door can also hold rainwater against the wall. Our first visit relays the worst of it and checks if the rest of the base has given way. Patio work is booked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. When we cannot answer, we call back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Sand drains beautifully and holds nothing
The heath soil here is the reason gardens in Ferndown drain so freely and also the reason so many patios end up out of shape. Sand has almost no cohesion. Left to itself it will find its own angle, which is why the sides of a hole collapse, why an unhaunched edging leans outwards, and why a slab bedded on sand alone will always eventually rock.
You can see the pattern from the garden. Failure starts at the perimeter and works inwards. The edging tips, the outer row of slabs drops a few millimetres, the joints open, and once water is getting into the base at the edge, the next winter takes another row. The middle of the terrace is often still perfectly flat while the border has come apart.
What that means for a quote is simple: ask what is going in at the edges. A haunched concrete edging and a membrane under the base are worth more on this ground than a step up in paving. On the plus side, a soakaway in Ferndown will actually work, which is a real saving on a job that would be a drainage problem two miles down the road.
Who you are dealing with
Patios for Tricketts Cross and Wimborne Road East
We lay patios in Ferndown, Stapehill, Tricketts Cross and along the Wimborne Road East side, in BH22. Ferndown is 5.9 miles from our Boscombe base; Dorset Council is the council here. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company number 15471719, registered in England and Wales. Before you book a visit in Ferndown, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Its owner, Thomas Hannen, measures the garden, checks the levels at the back door and prices the patio himself. Checkatrade carries one verified customer's 10 out of 10 for his work. The garden visit and the written, line by line quote cost you nothing. Sand needs firm edges under a car even more than under a table, so driveways in Ferndown get the same haunching.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Ferndown?
Most repairs in Ferndown 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.
| Question | In Ferndown |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Ferndown. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Ferndown, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, Ferndown has listed buildings. If yours is one, or stands in the grounds of one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Ferndown. |
Questions
Questions about patios in Ferndown
Why does my patio keep coming apart at the edges?
Because there is nothing holding it in. On sandy ground an edging needs concrete haunching behind it. Bedded on sand it slowly tips outwards, the outer slabs drop and the joints open from the border inwards.
Is a soakaway a good idea on this ground?
Usually a very good one: sand takes water quickly, so a properly sized soakaway sited clear of the footings does the job, and a permeable build with open joints works well here too.
Can slabs be laid straight onto sand if the ground drains this well?
They can, and they will move. Free draining ground helps the base but it does not spread the load. A full mortar bed over compacted stone is what keeps a terrace flat, whatever the ground underneath it does with water.
Why is the dig bigger than the patio?
Because the sides of an excavation in dry sand will not stand up straight. We batter them back or work in shorter lengths, which means a little more spoil. It is on the quote rather than sprung on you halfway through.
Is there anything round here that limits what I can lay?
For an ordinary terrace at ground level in a back garden, no. There is no conservation area over the town; the parish's one covers only the hamlet of Hampreston, and if your house is itself listed, check first. It is raised platforms above 300mm and tall boundary walls that need looking at.
Nearby, and next door
Patios near Ferndown
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Find out what your edges are actually doing
Thomas comes out, digs a trial hole, checks the edge restraint and prices the base, the edgings and the paving in writing. The visit and the quote are free.