Patios in Minstead, terraces away from the house
The sunniest part of a Forest garden is rarely next to the back door, and a terrace out there is a different job to set out and to reach.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Plots around Minstead are generous and scattered, and a good number of the patios we build here are nowhere near the house. They go where the afternoon sun is, at the bottom of a garden or out beyond the trees, and that changes almost everything about how the job is set out and priced.
The calls come in three shapes. Somebody wants a sitting out area away from the building and cannot see how to get materials to it. A terrace out in the garden has sunk on one side and the retaining edge is bulging. And a patio by the house needs relaying.
We walk the route in before we price the paving, because the barrow run is a real cost. Then you get a written itemised quote with the dig, the muck away, the access, the sub base, the edgings, the slabs, the drainage and the jointing on separate lines. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Building a terrace out in the garden
Getting materials to the spot. The first thing we work out is how stone, sand and MOT Type 1 reach the place you want them, and how the spoil comes back. A tracked barrow over boards, a micro digger where a gate will take one, or hand digging where roots or a bank rule machinery out. It is a real line on the quote because it is real work.
Setting out without a house to work off. Away from the building there is no damp course and no threshold to take a level from, so the datum is the ground itself. We set the terrace so it sheds water in the direction the garden already drains, rather than creating a flat pan that collects it.
The dig. Topsoil, roots and any made ground come out and are excavated back to a firm formation. Out in a garden the topsoil is deeper than it is next to the house, so there is more spoil than people expect. Old concrete from a shed base turns up regularly.
The sub base. MOT Type 1 in thin lifts whacked to full compaction, carried past the edge of the paving, on a geotextile separator where the ground is soft. A terrace out in the garden sits on softer ground than one by the back door, so the compaction still has to be right.
Full mortar bed. Slabs on a full wet bed with a slurry primer on the back. Dabs leave voids under the stone, and out in a garden where the ground moves with the seasons a void turns into a rocking slab quickly.
What we lay. Porcelain is calibrated, sheds water, does not stain and holds grip in the wet, which matters under trees. Riven sandstone is warmer and porous and is bedded slab by slab. Limestone marks more easily, granite is the toughest, and travertine wants somewhere sheltered.
Edges, retaining and steps. A terrace cut into a slope needs a retaining edge or a low wall with coping to hold the higher side, a haunched edging or kerb where the paving meets grass, and steps with equal risers. That is what stops the build up creeping downhill.
Drainage and jointing. Water goes to a channel and a gully with an outfall, or to a soakaway where the ground will take the runoff, and a permeable build up over open graded stone is often the simplest answer out in a garden. Joints are filled with a brush in resin compound worked wet and tooled off. Repairs are the usual list: lifted slabs, a sunk corner, rocking paving, cracked stone, algae, efflorescence on new sandstone and staining.
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 inside the National Park and inside the Forest Central conservation area, so anything visible is looked at more closely, and there are listed entries scattered through the parish. Ground level paving in a garden is still normally permitted development and needs no planning permission, while a raised terrace can, and building control applies to retaining structures. The park authority keeps the heritage and conservation guidance.
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 an unmade track, a house with a gated drive to the rear, and a property where the terrace sits two hundred feet from the road 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. If a retaining edge out in the garden has begun to lean, ring about that first, because the terrace above it is what moves next. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
The local part
A patio a long way from the back door
Gardens here are big and the house is rarely in the sunniest part of them. So a lot of the terraces we build in Minstead sit out in the garden: a sun trap in a clearing, a level platform cut into a bank, or a seating area beyond the trees with a view down the plot. It is a better place to sit and it is a different job to build.
Everything has to travel. Stone, sand, cement and sub base go out by barrow or tracked dumper over boards, and every tonne of spoil comes back the same way. There is no water and no power where you are working, so mixing happens at one end and the mix is moved. On a long run that is not a small extra, and a quote that does not show it separately has either absorbed it or not thought about it.
The design changes too. There is no damp course to set a level from, so the terrace is worked off the ground and set to shed water the way the garden already drains, rather than becoming a flat pan in a slope. Cut into a bank it needs a retaining edge and drainage behind it. Done as an afterthought it becomes the wet corner.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Minstead, Emery Down, Cadnam and the lanes across the northern Forest, broadly SO43, with the New Forest National Park Authority as planning 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
Minstead questions we get asked
How do materials get to a terrace at the bottom of the garden?
By tracked barrow or dumper over boards, or a micro digger where a gate will take one. Where roots or a bank rule machinery out it is hand work. Either way the access appears as its own line on the quote rather than being buried in a rate.
Is a patio away from the house cheaper because there is no damp course to worry about?
Not usually. You save the level constraint at the wall and you pay it back in access, because every tonne in and every tonne of spoil out travels the length of the garden. The design is freer, the logistics are harder.
Do you need water and power on site?
It helps and it is not essential. Where the terrace is out in the garden we mix at one end and move the mix, and we bring our own water if there is no tap within reach. It is worth mentioning when you ring so the day is planned around it.
A terrace cut into a bank has started to slip. What is wrong?
Almost always the retaining edge, and usually because there is no drainage behind it. Water builds up in the ground it is holding and pushes. Rebuilding the edge with a footing and a drain behind it is the fix, not more paving on top.
Can you build a level platform on sloping ground?
Yes, that is most of what we do out here. Cut into the high side, retain it, fill and compact the low side properly rather than tipping loose soil in, and drain behind the retaining edge. The compaction on the filled half is what decides whether it stays flat.
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Get the access priced, not guessed
Thomas comes out, walks the route in, sets the levels off the ground and prices the work in writing. The visit and the quote are free.