Patios in Norton, low thresholds and damp courses
On a bungalow with the door a couple of courses off the ground, the patio is decided by how much height you can take out.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Norton is bungalow country, and on a bungalow the back door threshold is often only a course or two above the ground outside. There is no room to build a patio up, so the whole job becomes a question of how far down you dig and where the water is sent.
Three things bring people to the phone. A patio that has been built up over the years and now sits level with the door, so rain runs indoors. Slabs that rock and ring hollow because they were bedded on dabs. And a garden with no terrace at all, where the ground slopes gently back towards the building.
We come out, find the damp course, measure what headroom there actually is at the threshold, and only then talk about paving. You get a written itemised quote with the dig, the muck away, the sub base, the drainage, the edgings, the slabs and the jointing on separate lines. The site visit and the quote are free.
What the work involves
Paving to a low bungalow threshold
Digging down, not building up. The first job is usually removing height. Old concrete, a layer of slabs on sand, and the bed of shingle underneath all come out and are excavated back to a firm formation. That spoil has to leave, and the muck away is a real line on the quote rather than an afterthought.
The sub base. MOT Type 1 goes in and is whacked in thin lifts so it is genuinely compacted, and it is carried past the edge of the paving on all sides. Where the ground is soft a geotextile separator underneath keeps the hardcore out of the subsoil. On a low threshold the depth available is tight, which is exactly why the compaction has to be right.
Full mortar bed. Slabs are bedded on a full wet bed with a slurry primer painted on the back. Dabs are quicker and they leave voids, and on a shallow build up a void is the first thing to fail. A properly bedded slab also keeps the finished level exactly where it was set out.
The slabs themselves. Porcelain is calibrated, so a thin, dimensionally consistent slab lets you keep the finished level low, which matters more here than anywhere. Sandstone is riven and thicker and eats into the headroom you have. Limestone sits between them. Granite is heavy and hard wearing, and travertine is a sheltered courtyard material.
Two courses below the damp course. Paving falls away from the house and stops at least two courses below the DPC. Where the threshold will not allow it, the answer is a drainage channel across the door with a proper outfall and the paving dropped to suit. Approved Document C sets out why bridging the damp course is not an option.
Sending the water somewhere. A channel with nothing to run into is decoration. It needs a gully and an outfall, or a soakaway sited where the ground will actually take the runoff. Where neither is easy, a permeable build up over open graded stone lets the water go straight down through the joints.
Edges and steps. On a bungalow plot the ground often runs away from the house in a long shallow slope, so a haunched edging or kerb holds the paving, a retaining edge and coping take up any change of level, and one generous step is better than three mean ones.
Jointing and repairs. A brush in compound worked wet and tooled off, or hand pointing on an older stone terrace. The faults are the same everywhere: lifted corners, a sunk bay, rocking slabs on hollow beds, cracked stone, algae on the shaded side, efflorescence on new sandstone and staining. We tell you which is a lift and re-lay and which is 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 back garden at ground level is normally permitted development, so planning permission is not usually part of it, while a raised terrace can be, and building control only enters where a retaining structure is being built. The government guidance on when permission is needed is the place to check, and the island council is the authority here.
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 bungalow with a low threshold and a side gate, a pre-1900 cottage reached through the house, and a post war semi with an open back garden 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 water is finding its way in under a back door, ring while it is still raining and send us a photograph of where it comes in. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
The one local thing
A back door only two courses off the ground
Around a third of the homes in Norton are bungalows, and they were built with the floor close to the ground outside. On plenty of them the damp proof course is barely visible above the soil, and any patio has to finish below it with a couple of courses to spare. That leaves very little room to work in.
The temptation, and it happens constantly, is to lay the new surface over the old one. Each time that is done the ground outside climbs a little closer to the door until it is level with the threshold or above it. At that point rain running off the paving has nowhere to go except across the doorway, and the wall has wet ground sitting against it above the damp course.
So the honest answer on a low bungalow threshold is to take the height out rather than add it. We dig down to get the finished level where it needs to be, choose a thinner calibrated porcelain rather than a thick riven stone to save what depth is left, run a drainage channel across the doorway into a real outfall, and set the fall away from the building. It is more work at the dig and it is the only version of the job that lasts.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Norton, Norton Green, Freshwater and the roads down to Yarmouth, broadly PO41, with the island council 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
Norton questions we get asked
My back door is barely above the ground. Can I still have a patio?
Yes, but it has to be dug down rather than built up. We take the height out, use a thinner calibrated slab to save what depth is left and run a channel across the doorway to an outfall. Laying over the old surface is what causes the trouble in the first place.
How much fall does a patio actually need?
Enough that water leaves rather than sits, and always away from the building. It is a gentle slope you would not notice walking on it, set out with a level and pegs before any stone is laid, not judged by eye at the end.
Is porcelain thinner than natural stone?
Generally yes, and it is calibrated, so every slab is the same. That matters on a low threshold where every few millimetres of build up counts. Riven sandstone varies in thickness and needs a deeper bed to bring it all level.
Can you lay the new patio straight on top of the old slabs?
We would rather not, and on a bungalow we usually cannot. It raises the finished level towards the damp course, and it leaves whatever was wrong with the old base still under there. The cost saved on the dig comes back later.
Does salt air off the Solent affect what should be laid?
It affects the fixings and the finish more than the stone. Surfaces stay damp longer near the water, so algae takes hold faster and a textured grade earns its keep. Any metal in steps or a handrail wants to be stainless rather than plain galvanised.
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See how much room there really is at your back door
Thomas comes out, finds the damp course, measures the threshold and prices the dig and the paving in writing. The visit and the quote are free.