Patios in Sopley, against walls with no damp course
The older cottages here were built before barrier courses were normal, so how low the paving finishes matters more than what the paving is made of.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
The older cottages in Sopley were built long before anybody put a barrier course into a wall, so many of them have no damp proof course at all. Paving up against that kind of wall is not a detail to get roughly right. It is the difference between a dry cottage and a damp one.
The calls here come from two directions. Somebody has a solid old wall and wants a terrace against it. Or somebody has inherited a patio that was laid too high years ago and now has damp showing on the inside of the same wall.
Either way the first job is to look at the wall rather than the garden: what it is built of, whether there is a barrier in it and where the ground can safely finish. Then the whole job goes into a written itemised quote, dig, base, drainage, paving and jointing on their own lines. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Paving against old walls, and everything under the slabs
Reading the wall first. A slate or bitumen damp course shows as a dark line two courses up. On a good many older cottages there is nothing there at all, and those walls rely on being able to dry out through their own face. Paving them in tight and running water at them takes that away.
Finishing low, and drained. Where there is a damp course, the finished ground goes two brick courses below it, the level Approved Document C works to. Where there is none, the answer is to keep the paving lower still and put a drained margin along the wall, a gravel strip or a channel drain, so splash and runoff are collected rather than thrown at the brickwork.
Digging against an old footing. Old walls often sit on shallow footings, sometimes little more than a widened course of brick. We hand dig the last stretch alongside them rather than run a machine up to the wall, because undermining a footing is a far more expensive problem than a patio.
The dig and the muck away. Old paving, bedding, concrete and any soft ground come out to a formation that will compact. Spoil is priced by the load, goes out in a grab lorry or a skip, and leaves with us. We are registered to carry waste.
Sub base and bedding. Geotextile membrane where the ground is soft, MOT Type 1 in compacted layers, then a full wet mortar bed with a slurry primer on the back of porcelain and dense stone. Dabs leave voids and voids crack slabs.
Choosing paving that suits an old building. Riven sandstone and limestone sit far more comfortably against brick and cob than a large format grey porcelain does. Granite is hard wearing and reads well as a step or an edge. Where a terrace is shaded, a textured porcelain is still the practical choice, and a smaller format helps it look at home.
Drainage. Runoff into a channel and out to a gully or a soakaway sited clear of the footings, or a permeable build with open joints, both judged against Approved Document H. Near the Avon it is worth proving a soakaway with a trial hole, because ground close to the river holds water through the winter.
Edgings, steps, jointing and repairs. Border edgings haunched in concrete, steps off a footing with a coping front, joints brushed in with a two part compound and tooled off. On existing terraces we re-bed slabs that have lifted or sunk, cut out cracked ones, re-point washed out joints and clear 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.
Sopley is in the New Forest National Park and the village has its own conservation area, so appearance is controlled here in a way it is not a couple of miles away, and there are a good many listed entries around the village and the church. Paving an enclosed back garden is normally still permitted development, but a frontage, a boundary wall or the ground attached to a listed building is a different conversation. the National Park property map shows which designation an address falls under, and we check it before quoting anything visible from the road.
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 brick and cob cottage with a narrow garden gate, a terraced house in the village with no side access, and a modern detached house with a drive to the 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. Sopley is about six miles from us, so it is usually a day or two before we can get out. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Paving a wall that has no damp course
A solid wall built before damp proof courses were normal does not keep water out by blocking it. It manages, taking a little water in during a wet spell and giving it back through its face when the weather turns. As long as the base of the wall can breathe and nothing is throwing water at it, that arrangement works, and it has worked in this village for a very long time.
A patio laid hard against such a wall breaks it twice over. The paving raises the ground, so moisture rises further up the brickwork than it used to. Then rain hits the slabs and splashes back at the wall in the very place that used to dry out. Inside, a damp band appears along the skirting, and it usually gets blamed on the wall rather than the paving that caused it.
The fix is not complicated and it does need to be asked for. Keep the terrace low. Put a drained margin along the wall, a strip of clean gravel or a channel, so splash is collected. Fall the paving away from the building rather than along it. And leave the base of the wall alone rather than sealing it in cement pointing or render, which traps the moisture instead of letting it out.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Sopley, Ripley, Winkton and the Avon valley lanes towards Bransgore, broadly BH23, inside the New Forest National Park. 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
Sopley questions we get asked
There is no barrier course in my wall. Can I pave against it?
Yes, but it has to be set low and drained at the wall. A strip of clean gravel or a channel along the brickwork collects the splash, and the paving falls away from the building. What does not work is slabs laid tight up against it.
Why has damp appeared inside since the patio went down?
Almost always because the finished level went up. Ground sitting at or above the base of the wall lets moisture rise further than it used to, and splash off the slabs wets the brickwork above that. Dropping the level usually deals with it.
Will you dig right up to an old wall?
Not with a machine. Old footings can be shallow and easily undermined, so the last stretch alongside the wall is dug by hand and we look at what we find before going any deeper.
What paving suits a period cottage?
Riven sandstone or limestone in a mixed size, rather than a large format grey slab, sits far more comfortably against old brick. Where a terrace is shaded and needs the grip, a textured porcelain in a smaller format is the sensible compromise.
Does being in the National Park stop me paving my garden?
No. An enclosed back garden is normally ordinary permitted development. What is controlled is appearance where it can be seen, a boundary wall, and anything attached to a listed building. We check the address before we quote.
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Get the wall looked at before the garden is dug
Thomas comes out, checks what the wall has in it, works out where the ground can finish and prices it in writing. The visit and the quote are free.