Patios in Holt
Gardens here are shaded by woodland and old hedgerows, so the patio never quite dries, and grip and drainage matter more than the colour of the slab.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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A shaded patio at Holt stays damp between showers, so it grows algae and turns slippery. Siting it in whatever light there is, choosing a textured surface and giving it a real fall are what keep it safe, far more than cleaning does.
Patio trouble here has a season. It shows in late autumn and again in February, when a patio that looked fine in August has gone green, greasy and slightly frightening to walk across with a tray in your hands.
The instinct is to jet wash it and forget it until next year. We come out to Holt, look at the shade and the falls, take a survey of the levels and tell you honestly whether it is a clean and a re-joint or a patio built where water sits. Whichever it is, the dig, the base, the drainage and the paving go on separate lines in a written itemised quote. The site visit and the quote are free.
The work
Paving that stays safe in the shade
Working out how much sun the ground gets. On a shaded Holt plot the first measurement is not the tape. We work out how many hours of winter sun the space sees, because a surface that never dries stays green whatever you pay for it. Moving the patio four metres into the light is often worth more than any upgrade on the slab.
Choosing for grip rather than for the brochure. A textured porcelain is the honest answer in shade: calibrated, almost no water taken up and nothing for algae to live in. Riven sandstone holds more and greens sooner, limestone and granite wear hard, and travertine stays wet, which under trees we would talk you out of.
A fall you can see. Water on a shaded patio has to leave quickly or it does not leave at all. We set a generous fall away from the house, chalk the DPC on the brickwork and finish two courses below it, and detail the threshold so nothing washes back to the door. Flat paving in shade is a slip waiting for February.
The dig and the muck away. Turf and topsoil, old flags bedded on sand, tree roots, old concrete and any made ground, all excavated to formation and taken off site. Access down the Holt lanes varies, so the quote says whether spoil leaves by barrow through a side gate or by machinery into a skip.
Base and bed. Geotextile membrane, MOT Type 1 hardcore compacted in layers, a sharp sand screed to level it, then a full bed of mortar under every slab with a slurry primer on the back. A proper mortar bed does not go hollow. Dabs do, and a hollow slab ends up rocking, cracked and holding the very water you were trying to shift.
Joints that do not feed the problem. Loose sand in a joint under a canopy turns into a seedbed within a season. Everything is filled with a brush in resin compound, a grout slurry or hand pointing in mortar, so leaf litter sits on top and sweeps off rather than rotting down into the paving.
Edges, steps and where the water ends up. A haunched kerb or an edging in concrete restrains the perimeter, a coping caps anything retaining, and a gravel border along the wall takes splashback. The fall runs into an ACO channel, an existing gully or a soakaway clear of the foundations, with a permeable build up where the runoff has nowhere to go.
Cleaning, and the patio you already have. A lot of patio work out in Holt is not a new patio. A yearly wash and a re-joint keeps a shaded terrace safe. Where a bay has lifted or sunk, or algae, efflorescence and staining have taken hold on paving that is otherwise sound, we quote the clean and the lift and relay rather than a rebuild.
How it runs
Laying a patio on slow-draining ground
Thomas looks at your Holt garden with you: how the ground falls, where water sits after rain, how much shade the patio will get, and where the damp course is on the house. His written price has lines for digging out and taking the spoil away, the sub base, falls and drainage, edgings and steps, the slabs, and the jointing. Thomas stays your contact until it is finished.
Where a Holt garden has only one narrow gate, every barrow of spoil goes out and every slab comes in by hand. A more open plot may take a small digger and a skip. No trench is left open and unguarded overnight, and the spoil goes away with us.
Should we uncover an old drain, a buried slab or a mat of roots, Thomas shows you a photo and a price for it, and waits for your say before going on.
Paving a garden at ground level rarely needs planning permission, since it is ordinarily permitted development; the government guidance on when permission is required explains the limits. Holt has no conservation area. In the grounds of a listed building you need listed building consent from Dorset Council, and Green Belt only comes in if you build something new, such as a garden room. Garden walls have height limits set out in the rules on garden walls, and the patio level against the house wall is governed by Approved Document C.
Cost
The dig, the falls and the slabs: patio prices around Holt
The slabs are the part you pick from a brochure and the smallest part of the bill, so there is no rate per metre.
Access. A garden behind one narrow gate means barrowing everything; a plot open to machinery and a skip goes much faster. The work at height rules still apply to steps and raised edges.
The dig. Old concrete, a raised bed, roots or rubble must be broken out and taken away, charged by the load.
Heavy ground. Holt's clay drains slowly. A patio must fall away from the house to something that will take the water, a gravel margin, a channel drain or a soakaway that has been tested. On heavy clay that can mean a deeper sub base or a drain run, and it is exactly where a cheap quote saves money.
Height against the house. The finished surface should sit at least two courses under the damp proof course. Getting that right may need steps down or a retaining edge.
Slab and bed. In a shaded, damp garden, a textured porcelain or dense stone is safer underfoot than a smooth riven slab. A full wet bed outlasts dabs, and the jointing compound matters.
Ask how deep they dig and what sub base is specified, which way the falls run and where the water goes, and whether edgings and steps are included.
If it has become a hazard
A lifted slab or a green, greasy patio
A slab that has lifted at a corner, or a step that has sunk, will catch someone's foot. A shaded, north facing Holt patio that never dries out in winter can be genuinely slippery, even for someone steady on their feet.
Stand a pot on the loose slab so it is obvious, and keep to the dry side. If water is standing against the house wall, mention it, because on Holt clay that wants sorting soon. On our first visit we re-lay the worst slabs and find out whether the bed beneath the rest has failed. Where somebody could fall, phone instead of sending the form, and a call back follows once we are free if you get no answer. Patio work is done Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Shade is what decides a patio here
Holt sits among woodland and old hedgerows, and a lot of the gardens here are shaded for most of the day by something that was there long before the house. That is lovely to look at and it is the single biggest influence on how a patio behaves.
Algae is not dirt. It is a living thing, and it needs only shade and damp to grow. A surface that gets four hours of winter sun dries between showers and stays clear. A surface under a canopy never dries, so the film forms, the leaf litter feeds it, and by January the patio is genuinely slippery. Cleaning it once and hoping does not work, because nothing has changed.
What does work is a short list. Put the sitting area in the brightest part of the plot you can live with. Choose a textured surface that absorbs almost nothing. Give it a fall generous enough that water is gone in minutes. Fill the joints so nothing rots into them. And wash it once a year rather than once a decade.
Who you are dealing with
The facts you can check about us
Patios in Holt, Holt Wood and Broom Hill, and gardens along the lanes towards Wimborne and Cranborne, fall under Dorset Council. Holt is about nine miles from our Boscombe base. The measuring and pricing in your garden is done by Thomas Hannen himself, since the business is his.
Checkatrade shows a verified reviewer's 10 out of 10. There is no charge for the visit, and none for the quote set out in writing item by item. Search for Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Shade reaches the front as well, and a driveway in Holt under trees needs the same textured surface and fall. Before you book a visit in Holt, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Holt?
Most repairs in Holt 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 Holt |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Holt. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Holt, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Holt. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Holt. |
Questions
Questions about patios in Holt
Why does my patio go green every winter?
Because it never dries out. Algae needs shade and damp and nothing else, so a surface under a canopy grows it faster than one in the open. It is not dirt and it is not a fault in the paving; it is a growing thing that comes back until the water leaves faster.
Does jet washing fix a slippery patio?
It clears it for a while. It does not change why it grew, and used too hard it strips soft stone and blows the joints out, which is how the bed starts washing. A wash, a re-joint and a better fall is the combination that actually lasts.
Which paving is safest underfoot in shade?
A textured or grip finished porcelain. It absorbs almost nothing, so there is little for algae to hold on to and what does grow brushes off. Smooth or honed natural stone is the one to avoid on a plot that never sees the sun.
Should I cut the trees back instead?
More light always helps, and sometimes a sensible crown lift solves half the problem. Trees can be protected in their own right, though, so check before anything is cut. It is worth doing alongside the patio work rather than instead of it.
Is winter a bad time to have a patio laid?
We work all year, though mortar will not go down into a hard frost and we would sooner move a start date than lay on a bed that will not set. Allow about a week for a straightforward patio, ten days down a narrow lane.
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Get a patio you can cross in February
Thomas comes out, looks at the shade and the falls and prices the honest fix in writing, whether that is a clean or a rebuild. The visit and the quote are free.