Patios in Swanage
Gardens here climb, so a patio in Swanage is usually a terrace: a level platform cut into a slope, held at the front and drained at the back.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
A patio on a Swanage hillside is a small piece of ground engineering with a nice surface on it. The retaining edge, the steps and the drainage decide whether it is still level in ten years, and the slab you choose is the last decision, not the first.
Three jobs make up most of what we are asked to look at here. Concrete flags at the top of a garden that have settled and now rock underfoot. A shaded terrace behind a Victorian villa gone green and slippery. And a back door opening onto ground that climbs away, where somebody wants somewhere flat to put a table.
None of those is a paving problem on its own. We come out, take levels off the house, work out how much ground has to move and where the water will go, then price the dig, the base, the retaining and the paving on separate lines in a written itemised quote. The site visit and the quote are free.
The work
Terraces cut into a Swanage garden
Levels first, paving last. Every job starts with a laser level and a survey, not a brochure. We chalk the DPC on the brickwork, mark the finished height two courses below it and work down the garden to see what comes out and what has to be held up. On a slope that hour decides whether you are buying a patio or a patio plus a retaining wall.
The dig and the muck away. Old concrete, cracked flags bedded on sand, tree roots and, on the older properties, a depth of made ground with rubble through it. It is excavated to formation and leaves the site, by barrow rather than machinery where access is a terraced garden. Spoil is priced by the load into a skip, so we say what is coming out before we start.
Sub base and bedding. A geotextile membrane over the formation, MOT Type 1 hardcore compacted in layers rather than tipped in one, a sharp sand screed to level it, then a full bed of mortar under each slab with a slurry primer on the back. Five dabs is faster, and a full mortar bed is why our slabs are not the ones rocking, hollow and cracked two winters later.
The paving itself. Porcelain is calibrated, so every slab is the same thickness and the joints stay honest, and it takes on almost no dirt. Indian sandstone is hand cut and wants a thicker bed. Limestone and granite suit the grey stone walls around the town, and travertine looks beautiful and stays wet.
Retaining edges, steps and coping. A terrace needs holding, and that means a retaining wall on a footing rather than an edging kerb haunched in concrete. We cap it with a coping that throws water clear, hold open edges with a haunched kerb, and set the steps at a rise you can walk in the dark. A gravel border along the house keeps splashback off the wall, and the threshold is detailed so nothing washes back to the door.
Where the water goes. The fall runs away from the house at about one in eighty, into an ACO channel, an existing gully or a soakaway well clear of the foundations. A permeable build up is the option where there is nowhere to put the runoff.
Jointing, and the patio you already have. Joints get a brush in resin compound, a grout slurry or hand pointing in mortar, never loose sand. If your paving has lifted, sunk or shown efflorescence and staining we say honestly whether it is a lift and relay or a rebuild. Laying new slabs over old flags raises the level towards the damp proof course, and that is the one shortcut we will not take.
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.
A patio at ground level is ordinarily permitted development, and most of what we do here needs no application. Raise it into a platform, or build a retaining wall over a metre beside a road, and that changes; the rules on garden walls covers where the line falls. The town carries 129 listed entries, and on a listed house work in the grounds can need listed building consent. Finishing two courses below the damp proof course is building control rather than planning, and it comes from Approved Document C.
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 terraced garden behind a town house, a bungalow on the flat near the beach, and a villa where the only access is through the kitchen 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. Swanage is under nine miles from us, so a slab that has dropped by a step or a greasy terrace above a drop 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
Almost every garden here is on a slope
Swanage sits in a bowl. The ground climbs from the bay to the ridge on one side and to Durlston on the other, and a great many back gardens go up rather than out. That one fact changes a patio here more than anything else about the town.
On level ground a patio is a bed and a surface. On a slope it is a platform, and a platform has to be held at the front and cut in at the back. That means a wall on a footing, a set of steps, a coping to shed water, and a drain behind the terrace so the garden above is not emptying itself onto your paving. Roughly a fifth of the housing here predates 1900, and on those villas the ground has often been terraced once already, in stone, by somebody who knew what they were doing. Where that old wall is sound we build off it rather than take it out.
So look for the retaining and the drainage on any quote. Square metres of paving on a sloping garden is not a price for the job you are buying.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Swanage town, the seafront, Herston, New Swanage and out towards Durlston, broadly BH19, 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
Swanage questions we get asked
Is a raised terrace treated differently from flat paving?
It is. Paving at ground level in a back garden is almost never a planning matter. Lifting it into a platform, building a tall wall beside a road, or working on a listed house or in a conservation area all are. We tell you which before we quote.
My garden slopes steeply. Can I still have a level patio?
Yes, and it is the usual answer here. The ground is cut into at the back and built up at the front, the front edge is held by a wall on a footing, and steps take you up to the rest of the garden.
Why do my existing slabs rock when I stand on them?
Because they were bedded on dabs of mortar or on sand rather than a full bed. The slab bridges the gaps, water gets underneath and frost does the rest. Relaying on a full bed fixes it if the sub base below is sound.
Which paving copes best with a shaded, damp corner?
Porcelain, by a distance. It takes on almost no water, so algae has nothing to sit in and a brush and warm water lifts what does grow. Sandstone and limestone will green up on a shaded side and want cleaning once a year.
Can you lay local Purbeck stone?
We can, and on an older house it looks right in a way nothing else manages. It is heavier and less consistent in thickness than a calibrated porcelain slab, so the bed is worked slab by slab. People ask how long that adds: a simple terrace is a week, ten days or more with retaining and steps.
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Find out what your slope actually needs
Thomas comes out, takes the levels, works out the cut and fill and prices the retaining, the base and the paving in writing. The visit and the quote are free.