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.
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.
The calls here have a season. They come 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, 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 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 these 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 what we do out here 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
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 a garden at ground level is ordinarily permitted development, so planning permission is rarely needed and the government guidance on when permission is required sets out where that stops. There is no conservation area over the village and thirteen listed entries in the parish; work in the grounds of a listed building needs listed building consent from Dorset Council. Walls have their own height rules under the rules on garden walls, and the level against the house is building control, from Approved Document C.
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 cottage down a lane with one narrow gate, a plot open enough for machinery and a skip, and a long garden behind a hedge are three different jobs before a slab is cut. 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. Holt is under nine miles from us, so a patio that has turned greasy underfoot or a slab lifted proud at a step is normally looked at within a day or two. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs 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
A local firm you can check
We cover Holt, Holt Wood, Broom Hill and the lanes towards Wimborne and Cranborne, broadly BH21, 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
Holt questions we get asked
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. People ask how long: 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.