Patios in Lover
Terraces built for gardens that sit in tree shade for most of the day and take a long time to dry out.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
The patio problem in Lover is rarely the paving itself. It is shade. Gardens here sit tight against mature trees and tall hedge, plenty of them face north, and a surface that never gets an hour of direct sun stays damp, goes green and turns slippery by the middle of autumn.
That is what people ring about. A terrace you cannot walk on in socks in November. Black and green staining that comes back a month after it is washed. Leaf litter sitting in open joints. And underneath it, slabs that have started to rock because the base has stayed wet all year.
Two things fix it, and neither is a stronger jet wash. The surface has to dry, which means real falls and full joints, and the material has to be one that does not feed algae. We come out, lift a slab, look at the base and take levels off the house, then price the work in writing with the dig, the sub base, the paving, the edges and the jointing itemised. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Paving chosen for a garden that never dries
Porcelain first. Calibrated twenty millimetre porcelain absorbs almost nothing. There is no open pore for algae to root in and no water in the body of the slab for a frost to expand, so a shaded terrace in porcelain stays workable with an occasional wash. It has to be laid on a full bed of mortar over a slurry primed back, never on dabs, because voids under a dense unit crack it.
The stones, honestly. Sandstone is warm and easy to lay and it is the one that greens worst in shade, because it is porous. Limestone is more even in colour and marks with iron. Granite is dense and copes far better with a permanently damp corner. Travertine we would steer you away from here. Hand cut stone varies in thickness and the mortar bed levels it; calibrated stone is sawn to one depth.
Getting the old surface out. Old concrete, decayed flags on sand, brick paviours or a raised bed all come out first, along with any roots crossing the area and any made ground. We excavate to firm formation and the spoil goes into a grab lorry or a skip and leaves with us.
The sub base. A geotextile separator over soft ground, then MOT Type 1 in compacted layers of about 100mm. Under trees the ground is often full of fine root and holds moisture, so the separator and the compaction matter more here than they do on an open plot.
Falls, and why they matter more in shade. A sunlit patio forgives a lazy fall because it dries anyway. A shaded one does not. Paving runs away from the building and finishes two courses below the DPC where it can, which is the point of Approved Document C, and the water goes to a gully, a soakaway where the ground takes it, or a permeable build so the runoff stays on your land.
Jointing. This is where shaded patios are won and lost. Stone is hand pointed in a matched mortar or given a brush in compound worked deep into a full joint and struck off. Porcelain takes a grout made for dense units. A joint filled short holds leaf mould and water, and that is exactly what the moss grows in.
Edges and steps. Edging bedded and haunched in concrete, a coping to any low retaining wall, a kerb line at the lawn and a gravel border along the house wall to take the drip. Steps get set out before the paving on a sloping woodland plot.
Repairs and cleaning. Re-bedding rocking slabs, rebuilding a sunken corner, swapping cracked units, renewing failed jointing, and cleaning down a green terrace and correcting the falls so it stops coming back every autumn.
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.
This side of the parish falls under the New Forest National Park Authority, which looks harder at design and materials than a district council would, though a patio behind the house is normally permitted development. There are a handful of listed entries locally and no conservation area over the housing. The NPA's property map shows what applies to an address, and paving itself is not building control work.
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 on the lane with a passage you can just get a barrow down, a bungalow with a wide gate, and a house with an open drive to the rear are three different jobs before a slab is chosen. 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 it has got slippery rather than broken, say so when you ring, because that is often a clean and a regrade rather than a rebuild. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Shade is a specification, not a complaint
A north facing terrace under trees gets a fraction of the drying that the same paving would get twenty feet away in the open. Algae need moisture and something to hold on to, and a porous slab with half empty joints gives them both. That is why the same patio can be green at one end and clean at the other.
It changes three decisions. The material, because a dense porcelain or granite denies the growth a foothold that sandstone hands it. The falls, because a shaded surface has to shed water rather than hold a film of it. And the jointing, because a full, well compacted joint is the difference between a surface that sheds leaf litter and one that composts it.
There is a fourth thing worth saying, which is the trees themselves. We do not cut a root plate back to make a level. Where roots cross the area we lift the build slightly, put more stone in, keep the jointing flexible and accept a shallower dig over that stretch, because a tree that dies two years after the patio was laid costs you far more than the paving did.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Lover, Redlynch, Woodfalls, Nomansland and the villages along the north edge of the Forest, broadly SP5, under the New Forest National Park Authority. 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
Lover questions we get asked
What is the best patio material for permanent shade?
Porcelain, then granite. Both are dense enough that algae struggle to take hold, so they clean up with a wash rather than needing treating every year.
Why does the green come back so fast after jet washing?
Because pressure takes the growth off and leaves the conditions that made it. If the falls are flat and the joints are open, the moisture stays and the algae return within a season.
Can I have sandstone anyway if I prefer the look?
Yes, with your eyes open. Build in proper falls, keep the joints full, and plan on treating it every year or two. Plenty of people are happy with that trade.
Will laying a patio damage the tree it sits under?
It can, if somebody digs through the roots. We raise the build over the root zone instead, use more stone and less excavation there, and keep the jointing flexible.
Do you clear the leaf litter and moss as part of a relay?
Yes. The old jointing is raked out, the surface cleaned down and the joints refilled properly, which is usually what makes the difference rather than the slabs being replaced.
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Stop the terrace going green every autumn
Thomas comes out, looks at the falls, the joints and the shade, and prices the work in writing. The visit and the quote are free.