Patios in Owermoigne
Paving laid to a fall, with a real answer to the question of where the water ends up afterwards.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
In a village like Owermoigne there is usually no surface water sewer waiting at the boundary to take your rain away. So the moment you pave a piece of garden, everything that used to soak into grass has to go somewhere you have chosen, and that decision belongs at the start of the job rather than the end.
The calls we get here follow from that. A terrace that puddles in the middle after any decent rain. Water running back at the house rather than away from it. Jointing washed out along one line. And slabs that rock because the base has spent five winters wet.
We come out, lift a slab, dig a hole to see how the ground drains, and take levels off the house and any existing gully before we price anything. What comes back is one written itemised quote with the dig, the muck away, the sub base, the paving, the drainage, the edges and the jointing all shown separately. The site visit and the quote are free.
The work
Laying the paving and dealing with the rain it sheds
Falls before finishes. Paving runs away from the building, not along the wall, and it finishes two courses below the DPC where the garden allows, which is what Approved Document C is about. A patio set flat because it looks tidier is the commonest reason a terrace ponds, and it is not something a different slab will fix.
Where the water goes. Three real options. An existing gully, if we can prove it still runs rather than assuming it. A soakaway, sized and sited properly and dug where a trial hole shows the ground will actually take it. Or a permeable build, with an open graded stone reservoir under the paving and permeable jointing above it, so the patio holds the rain and lets it go slowly. BS 7533-13 covers how that is built, and Approved Document H covers surface water drainage generally.
Channels and thresholds. Where a door sits low, an ACO channel across the threshold with a proper outfall gives back the clearance you need without raising the paving up the wall. It is a small line on a quote and it saves a lot of trouble.
The dig. Old concrete, sunken flags, brick paviours, a raised bed, roots and made ground all come out. We excavate to firm formation and the spoil goes into a grab lorry or a skip and leaves with us.
The sub base. Geotextile separator over soft ground, then MOT Type 1 in compacted layers of about 100mm. A base built in one deep lift and given a single pass is the reason most rocking patios rock.
Porcelain and stone. Calibrated twenty millimetre porcelain absorbs almost nothing and stays clean, laid on a full bed of mortar over a slurry primed back and never on dabs. Sandstone is warm and easy to work but porous, so it stains and greens in shade; limestone is quieter and marks with iron; granite is the densest of the three; travertine is a poor choice for a wet winter. Hand cut stone varies in thickness so the mortar bed levels it, calibrated stone is sawn to one depth.
Edges and jointing. Edging bedded and haunched in concrete, a coping to a low retaining wall, a kerb line at the lawn, and a gravel border along the house. Stone gets hand pointing in a matched mortar or a brush in compound worked into a full joint; porcelain takes a grout made for dense units.
Repairs. Re-bedding rocking slabs, rebuilding a sunken bay that holds water, replacing cracked units and renewing jointing that has washed out.
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.
Owermoigne has no conservation area over the village, so a garden patio is ordinary permitted development provided the water stays on your own land. Thirteen listed entries in the parish are the exception, and work in the curtilage of one is a consent question. Dorset Council holds the record of what is listed. Paving is not building control work, though a connection into an existing drain can be.
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 village street with a side passage, a house with a gate wide enough for a micro digger, and a bungalow with an open drive round the back are three different jobs before any paving. 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 taken while it is actually raining is the single most useful thing you can send us, because it shows where the water sits. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
There is nowhere to send the water but your own garden
Villages out here are not served by a surface water sewer the way a town street is. Rain that lands on a roof goes to a soakaway or a ditch, and rain that lands on new paving has to be dealt with the same way. It is not a planning obstacle for a rear patio, it is a design problem you either solve at the start or live with afterwards.
The common mistakes are all versions of ignoring it. Paving laid flat so the water simply stands. Paving falling towards the house because that was the easiest level to work to. A soakaway dug too close to a wall, or dug into ground that will not take water, so it fills and stays full. And a new terrace draining onto next door's garden, which is a conversation nobody enjoys having.
So the survey includes a hole and a bucket of water as well as a tape measure. If the ground drains, a properly sized soakaway set well away from the building is the simplest answer. If it does not, the falls run to a ditch or a border that can genuinely take it, or the whole build goes permeable so the patio itself becomes the storage. Knowing which before the quote is written is why the drainage sits on the quote as its own line rather than appearing as an extra later.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Owermoigne, Crossways, Warmwell, Moreton and the villages between Dorchester and Wareham, broadly DT2, 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
Owermoigne questions we get asked
Where is a new patio supposed to drain to out here?
Onto your own land. A soakaway where the ground takes water, an existing gully or ditch we have proved still runs, or a permeable build that stores the rain under the paving.
Will a soakaway actually empty in this ground?
You find that out by digging a hole and filling it with water. If it sits there, a soakaway is the wrong answer and the falls run to an outfall, or the build goes permeable instead.
Can the patio drain onto the lawn?
A gravel border or a soft edge can take a modest amount, and on small terraces it is often enough. A large sealed area needs somewhere designed rather than a wet patch of grass.
My terrace puddles in the middle. Can it be relaid?
Usually yes. If the slabs are sound they come up, the base is corrected to a proper fall, and they go back down. The dig is the part you cannot avoid.
Does a permeable patio still look like a normal one?
Yes. The difference is in the stone underneath and in the jointing, not in the slabs, so it reads the same from the kitchen window.
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Sort out where the water goes before you pave
Thomas comes out, tests how the ground drains and prices the dig, the base, the drainage and the paving in writing. The visit and the quote are free.