Patios in Post Green

Working out what is looked at and what is not. Paving a back garden at ground level is your business. A raised terrace, a new wall along a lane or a change that reads from the road is not, once you are inside the conservation area. We establish which side of that line your job sits on at the survey, before anything is priced or ordered.

The dig and the muck away. Old concrete, a set of flags bedded on sand, tree roots and, on the older plots, made ground with brick rubble through it. All of it is excavated to formation and taken off site. Access here varies enormously, so we say on the quote whether the spoil goes out by barrow through a side gate or by machinery to a skip.

Levels against the wall. We scrape back, chalk the DPC on the brickwork and set the finished paving two courses below it with a fall running off the house. Where the threshold has to stay flush, a recessed channel does the work a step would otherwise do.

Base and bed. Geotextile membrane, MOT Type 1 hardcore compacted in layers, a sharp sand screed to level it off, then a full bed of mortar under each slab with a slurry primer on the back. Never dabs. A slab on dabs is hollow; a full mortar bed is not, and hollow slabs finish up rocking, cracked and holding water.

Materials that sit right against old brick. Riven Indian sandstone and a buff limestone look at home next to weathered brick and rubble stone in a way a bright grey porcelain does not always manage. Porcelain is calibrated, easy to keep and excellent out of sight of the road. Granite is dense and dark, travertine holds water. We lay samples out wet against your own wall before you commit.

Walls, steps and coping. Retaining is common here because the ground moves about. Low walls go on a proper footing, edges are held with a haunched kerb and a coping throws the water clear, with a gravel border along the wall to take splashback. Where a wall will be seen, matching the brick or the stone is worth the trouble and worth asking about.

Where the water goes. A fall away from the house into an ACO channel, an existing gully or a soakaway set clear of the foundations, and permeable construction where the runoff has nowhere else to travel. This is Poole Harbour's catchment, so keeping surface water on the plot rather than pushing it into the lane is the right answer as well as the tidy one.

Jointing, and the paving you already have. Joints get a brush in resin compound, a grout slurry or hand pointing in mortar. Where a patio has only lifted or sunk in one corner, or gone green with algae and shown efflorescence and staining, we quote the clean, the re-joint and the lift and relay rather than the rebuild.

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 where everything goes through the house, a modern plot you can bring machinery and a skip onto, and a garden reached only by a narrow lane 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.

We cover Post Green, Lytchett Minster, Upton and the roads towards Sandford, broadly BH16, 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.