Patios in Milborne St Andrew
New paving, lifted and relaid terraces, steps and edges, priced in writing after somebody has looked under the slabs.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most patio work in Milborne St Andrew is one of two jobs wearing the same clothes. Either the paving sits against an old cottage whose floor is lower than the garden, or it sits behind a newer house where the only real question is the base under it.
The calls come in a familiar order. A terrace that has dropped away at one corner and now rocks. Joints that have washed out and grown weeds and moss. And a slabbed area laid so tight against the wall that rain runs back at the brickwork instead of away from it.
We lift a slab or two, look at what is underneath, and take levels off the building before anything else. That tells us whether you are buying a repair or a rebuild, and they are very different jobs. What you get back is one written itemised quote with the dig, the base, the paving, the edges and the jointing on their own lines. The visit and the quote cost nothing.
What we lay here
From lifting the old flags to the last joint
Getting the old surface out. Old concrete, a bed of 1960s slabs on sand, brick paviours sunk into the lawn, a raised bed built off the wall: it all has to be dug out and taken away before anything can be set out. We excavate to firm ground, dig out roots and made ground where we meet them, and the spoil goes into a grab lorry or a skip and leaves with us rather than sitting in a heap for a fortnight.
The sub base is the job. MOT Type 1 laid and compacted in layers of about 100mm on a geotextile separator over soft formation. A patio that rocks, sinks or lifts almost never has a slab problem; it has a base problem, and hardcore tipped in one lift and given a single pass with a whacker is the usual cause.
Porcelain. Calibrated twenty millimetre porcelain is dense, barely takes water and keeps its grip wet if the finish is textured. It goes on a full bed of mortar over a slurry primed back. Laid on dabs it sounds hollow, and the first dropped pot finds the void.
Sandstone, limestone and granite. Sandstone is the friendliest to lay and the warmest in colour, but porous, so it stains and greens where the sun does not reach. Limestone is more even and marks with iron. Granite is dense and hard wearing. Travertine is the worst of the four in a Dorset winter. Hand cut stone varies in thickness so the mortar bed does the levelling; calibrated stone is sawn to one depth.
Levels, falls and the damp proof course. A patio falls away from the house, not along the wall, and finishes at least two courses below the DPC, which is what Approved Document C is about. Where the ground outside is already at floor level, that is solved with a step, a retaining edge and a drainage channel across the threshold rather than by raising the paving up the wall. Then the water has to go somewhere on your own ground: a gully that still runs, a soakaway where the ground drains, or permeable jointing over an open graded base so the runoff never reaches the lane.
Edges and borders. Every patio needs something holding it in: edging bedded and haunched in concrete, a coping to a low retaining wall where the garden steps up, a kerb line against a lawn, and a gravel border so the eaves drip lands in stone rather than on the slabs.
Jointing. Stone is pointed by hand in a matched mortar, or a brush in compound worked into a full, deep joint. Porcelain takes a grout made for a dense unit. Joints left short are how water gets into the bed and how algae, weeds and frost damage begin.
Repairs. Re-bedding a rocking slab, rebuilding a sunken corner, swapping cracked units, raking out failed jointing, or cleaning down a slippery terrace and correcting its falls.
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.
The village has no conservation area of its own, so ordinary permitted development covers a patio in the garden as long as the water stays on your land. What does bite here is the individual building: there are twenty five listed entries in and around Milborne St Andrew, and works in the curtilage of a listed cottage are a consent question. Dorset Council keeps the record of what is listed.
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 thatched cottage on the main street with a side passage, a post war semi with a full width gate, and a bungalow on a corner plot with an open drive are three different jobs before any paving 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. A photograph of where the water sits and one of the corner that has dropped tells us most of what we need before we come out. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
It is the building that is protected, not the street
Milborne St Andrew is not a conservation area, and people are often surprised by that, because the village looks like one. It means the paving you choose in your own back garden is your business. But there are twenty five listed entries here, and if yours is one of them, or sits in its curtilage, the protection follows the building rather than the postcode.
For a patio the parts that catch people out are rarely the slabs. Taking down an old boundary wall to get a machine in, fixing a handrail or a light into a listed elevation, forming steps against the building, or bedding paving hard up to an old plinth can all need consent when a terrace in the middle of the lawn does not. The Planning Portal sets out the other permissions that can sit alongside permitted development.
It changes what we do rather than whether we do it. Against a soft old wall we keep the patio clear of the fabric with a gravel margin and a channel, and we choose a riven stone that sits quietly beside brick and flint instead of a bright sawn finish. Where consent is genuinely needed we say so at the quote stage, not after the digger has arrived.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We work across Milborne St Andrew, Milborne Stileham, Dewlish and the Puddletown villages, broadly DT11 and the DT2 border, 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
Milborne St Andrew questions we get asked
Do I need consent for a patio at a listed cottage?
Often yes for anything that touches the building or its curtilage, and often no for paving out in the garden. It turns on what you are fixing into, digging against or changing. We flag it before quoting.
My slabs sound hollow when I walk on them. Is that serious?
It means they were laid on dabs or the bed has parted from the base. They will crack in time and they rock now. Lifting and re-bedding on a full bed is the fix, if the sub base under them is sound.
Can porcelain go straight over my existing concrete?
Sometimes. If it is sound, not moving and has enough fall, it can be primed and used as the base. If it is cracked, ponding or laid above the damp course, it comes out first.
Our seating area barely sees the sun. What should we lay?
Porcelain, comfortably. It absorbs almost nothing, so algae have less to feed on and a wash keeps it clean. Sandstone in the same corner will need treating every year or two.
What happens to the soil that comes out?
It leaves site. Grab lorry where one can reach the gate, covered skip where it cannot, priced as its own line so you can see what the dig costs.
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Get the patio priced properly, line by line
Thomas comes out, looks under the existing paving and puts the dig, the base, the slabs and the jointing in writing. Both the visit and the quote are free.