Patios in Poole, in yards that never see the sun
Behind the old streets the gardens are small and boxed in, and paving that never dries out makes the surface finish a safety question rather than a style one.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
The old streets of Poole are tightly built, and a lot of the gardens behind them are small courtyards boxed in by walls and neighbouring roofs. Ground that never gets direct sun stays damp, and damp paving grows a film you can slip on, so in this part of town the surface finish matters more than the colour.
People ring because a terrace has gone dark green and treacherous by November, because the jointing has washed out and moss has taken over, or because a courtyard drains nowhere and there is standing water against the back wall after every downpour.
We come and look at it in the conditions that matter, which usually means in the wet. Where the shade falls, how the water moves and what the existing surface actually does underfoot. Then it goes into a written itemised quote, with the dig, the base, the drainage, the paving and the jointing on separate lines. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Courtyards, shaded terraces and the surfaces that suit them
Choosing for grip, not for the photograph. In permanent shade the finish on the slab is the safety feature. Textured porcelain and flamed or bush hammered granite keep their grip wet. Honed or polished stone does not, and it is the single most common reason a handsome new terrace turns out to be unusable in winter.
Porcelain. Dense, effectively non porous, and the easiest surface to keep clean in a shaded yard because algae have nothing to root into. It has to be bedded on a full wet mortar bed with a slurry primer on the back of every slab. Laid on dabs it cracks, and in a small courtyard every cracked slab is in plain sight.
Sandstone, limestone and granite. Sandstone is porous, so in a damp yard it greens over faster and holds staining. Limestone is quieter in colour and marks with iron. Granite is the hardest wearing of the three and the best natural stone for a shaded route. Calibrated slabs are sawn to one thickness and lay faster than hand cut.
Getting in and out. Behind the older houses there is often no side access at all, so the dig comes through the house on boards and sheeting, or over a wall where a neighbour agrees. Everything is barrowed, spoil goes into a grab lorry or a permitted skip, and it leaves with us. We are registered to carry waste.
The dig and the base. Out comes the old bedding, any concrete and any made ground, down to a formation that will compact. Geotextile membrane over soft ground, then MOT Type 1 in compacted layers. A small courtyard is not a small excavation, and the muck away is priced by the load.
Falls and drainage in an enclosed yard. There is usually no border to drain into, so the runoff has to be collected. A channel drain along the low side with an outfall to a gully, or a permeable build over a free draining base, judged against Approved Document H. Paving still finishes two brick courses below the damp course, the level Approved Document C works to.
Edgings, steps and thresholds. Border edgings haunched in concrete against the walls, a coping or bullnose on any step, and a recessed threshold channel where a back door sits low, which in the old town it very often does.
Jointing, cleaning and repairs. Joints brushed in with a two part compound and tooled off, because open joints in a shaded yard fill with moss within a season. We also lift and re-bed rocking slabs, cut out cracked ones, re-point washed out joints and clear off 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.
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole is the planning authority, and a good part of the old town sits in the Town Centre Heritage conservation area, where appearance is controlled, so the council keeps the list. A patio in an enclosed back courtyard is rarely the issue; a frontage, a boundary wall or work to a listed building is. Away from those streets, paving a rear garden is permitted development, while a raised platform over 300mm needs planning permission and a retaining wall can bring building control in.
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 Victorian terrace with a passage to the yard, a converted flat sharing a rear courtyard, and a quayside house with no rear access at all are three different jobs before a slab is cut. 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. We are under six miles away, so a Poole address is normally looked at within a day or two. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Why a north facing courtyard turns green
Algae, lichen and moss do not need soil. They need moisture and low light, and a small yard enclosed by walls and overlooked by roofs gives them both for most of the year. Sun dries a surface between showers. Shade does not, so the film that would burn off on an open lawn edge simply stays and thickens, and by the back end of the year the paving is genuinely slippery.
That changes two decisions. The first is the paving itself: a porous stone in a shaded yard takes water in and gives growth something to hold on to, while a dense textured porcelain or a flamed granite sheds it and washes clean. The second is the joints, because a sand joint in the shade is a seed bed and a properly brushed in compound is not.
The maintenance advice is the least glamorous and the most useful. A rinse down twice a year, before and after winter, does more for a shaded terrace than any coating. Where a treatment is needed we use it properly and keep the residue out of the drains. What we would talk you out of is a pressure washer held hard against natural stone, which strips the face, opens the joints and leaves the surface rougher and quicker to green over than it was.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Poole town centre, the quay, the Old Town streets, Baiter and Hamworthy, broadly BH15, 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
Poole questions we get asked
My courtyard never sees the sun. Which paving should I choose?
A textured porcelain or a flamed granite. Both are dense, so they take almost no water, and both keep their grip wet. Avoid anything honed or polished, however good it looks dry.
Is there any way to stop a shaded terrace going green?
Not entirely, because the shade is the cause. You can make it far slower and far easier to clean by using a non porous surface, jointing it properly and rinsing it down twice a year.
Can I pressure wash natural stone?
Gently and at a distance, yes. Held close and hard it takes the face off sandstone, blows the jointing out and leaves a rougher surface that greens over faster than before. That is a common way of making a terrace worse.
Where does the water go in a yard with no borders?
Into a channel along the low edge and out to a gully, or into a permeable build that holds it in the sub base and lets it away slowly. What it must not do is sit against the wall of the house, which is what most of these yards currently do.
How do you get materials into a yard with no side access?
Through the house on boards and sheeting, or over a wall by conveyor where a neighbour agrees. It is slower and it shows as its own line on the quote. Nothing crosses a floor that has not been covered first.
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Get your courtyard looked at in the wet
Thomas comes out, sees where the shade and the water sit and prices the dig, the drainage and the paving in writing. The visit and the quote are free.