Patios in Merritown, and where the water goes
On low ground near the Moors River a soakaway can be full before the winter starts, so the drainage gets settled here long before anybody picks a slab.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Merritown sits on low ground close to the Moors River, and here the first question about a patio is not what it is made of. It is where its water is allowed to go, because a soakaway dug on ground that holds water in winter simply fills up and stays full.
What people ring about: a terrace that is under water for days after heavy rain, moss and algae in every joint by February, or slabs that have sunk in a soft patch and now tip when you stand on them.
So we come and dig a trial hole and fill it with water before anything else. What comes back tells us whether the ground will take the rain off a patio or whether it has to be piped somewhere. Then the whole thing goes into a written itemised quote, dig, base, drainage, paving and jointing on separate lines. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Building a terrace on ground that holds water
Finding out what the ground will take. A hole, a bucket of water and a watch. Ground that drains in minutes will run a soakaway happily. Ground that is still holding water an hour later will not, and no amount of stone changes that. It is twenty minutes that saves an expensive mistake.
Where the runoff ends up. Either a soakaway sized for the area and sited well clear of any footing, or a channel drain along the low edge with a positive outfall to a surface water drain or a ditch. Approved Document H is the standard that decides which is acceptable, and on this ground it is very often the second.
A permeable build. The alternative worth pricing here is paving laid with open joints over a free draining base that holds the rain and lets it away slowly, set out in BS 7533-13. It uses more stone in the sub base and a deeper dig, and on a garden with nowhere obvious to send water it is often the cleanest answer.
The dig, and what leaves site. Old paving, bedding, concrete and any soft or made ground come out to a formation that can be compacted. On wet ground that can mean going deeper than expected, so the muck away is priced by the load. It goes out by grab lorry or skip and leaves with us. We are registered to carry waste.
Sub base and bedding. Geotextile membrane is not optional on soft ground: without it the stone works down into the subsoil and the base thins out. MOT Type 1 goes in compacted layers, then a full wet mortar bed under every slab with a slurry primer on the back of porcelain and dense stone.
Porcelain, sandstone, limestone and granite. On damp ground porcelain is hard to argue with, because it takes almost no water and a textured face keeps its grip through the winter. Sandstone and limestone are porous and green over faster here. Granite is the toughest of the natural stones. Calibrated slabs lay quicker than hand cut.
Levels, edgings and steps. Paving falls away from the house and finishes two brick courses below the damp course, the figure Approved Document C works to. Border edgings are haunched in concrete, steps go off a footing with a coping front, and a retaining course gets a land drain behind it.
Jointing and repairs. Joints brushed in with a two part compound in damp conditions and tooled off. We also do the smaller work: re-bedding sunken or rocking slabs, cutting out cracked ones, re-pointing washed out joints, and clearing algae and efflorescence.
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 is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole for planning, and there is no conservation area over these few houses. Paving a garden is permitted development; a raised platform more than 300mm above the ground is not, and a retaining structure of any height brings building control into it. The one thing worth checking here is flood risk, because part of this ground falls inside flood zone 2 on the Environment Agency flood map, and that changes how surface water has to be handled rather than whether you can pave.
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 a large plot off Matchams Lane where a lorry can get to the garden, a cottage with a narrow side path, and a bungalow with a terrace hard against the back wall 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. Merritown is under five miles away, so we can usually be with you within a couple of days. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Winter water, and the soakaway that never drains
The Moors River runs less than a kilometre from these houses and the ground either side of it behaves accordingly. In August you can dig a hole and it will be dry. In February the same hole has water standing in it by the time you have finished digging. That seasonal swing is the whole problem with drainage design here, because most people plan a patio in the summer.
A soakaway relies on water leaving it faster than rain arrives. When the surrounding ground is already saturated, nothing leaves, the chamber fills, and the water backs up under the paving. The base softens, the slabs settle unevenly, and the joints stay wet long enough for moss and algae to take hold across the whole terrace.
The advice is straightforward. Get a trial hole dug and tested in the wet half of the year if you can, or at least be honest about what the ground does in winter. If it will not take the water, do not buy a soakaway: take the runoff to a real outfall, or build the terrace permeable so it stores the rain in its own sub base and releases it slowly.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Merritown, Hurn, Parley Green and the Matchams Lane side of the heath, broadly BH23, under Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 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
Merritown questions we get asked
How can I test the ground myself before I gather prices?
Dig a hole about a metre deep, fill it with water and time how long it takes to empty. If it is still holding water an hour later the ground will not run a soakaway in winter, whatever it does in July.
Is a permeable patio worth the extra cost here?
On ground with nowhere obvious to send water, often yes. The rain is held in the sub base and released slowly instead of running off to a drain that is already full. It needs a deeper dig and more stone, which is where the difference in price sits.
Why does my patio go green every winter and not my neighbour's?
Because the joints and the base stay wet. Algae only need a damp surface and low light. A terrace that drains properly dries between showers and stays far cleaner without anybody scrubbing it.
Can a patio be built where the ground floods?
Usually, yes. Being in a flood zone changes how the water is dealt with rather than whether you can pave. What it rules out is sealing a large area and sending the runoff somewhere that cannot take it.
Do you need a lorry to reach the garden?
It helps, and on the bigger plots here it is usually possible, which keeps the muck away straightforward. Where it is not, a micro digger and barrows do the same job more slowly, and that shows as its own line on the quote.
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Find out whether your ground will take the water
Thomas comes out, digs a trial hole, tests what the ground does and prices the drainage and the paving in writing. The visit and the quote are free.