Patios in Three Legged Cross
Plots here are compact, so the patio is often most of the garden, and layout, slab size and where the water goes matter more than they would on an acre.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
In a small garden at Three Legged Cross the patio is most of the usable space, so the layout, the unit size and the drainage carry all the weight. It is not a big job scaled down; it is a job with nowhere to hide a mistake.
The two jobs we see here are a tired square of flags that has sunk and now puddles by the back door, and a compact garden that somebody wants paving properly from fence to fence so the whole of it earns its keep.
Both need the layout settling before the paving is chosen. We come out, measure, mark the shape out on the ground, take a survey of the levels and work out where the water can realistically go, then price the dig, the base, the edging, the drainage and the paving on separate lines in a written itemised quote. The site visit and the quote are free.
The work
Paving a garden with no room to spare
Setting out where every millimetre counts. On a small garden the layout is not a detail, it is the whole design. We measure, mark it out on the ground and walk it with you, because a table and four chairs needs more room than a plan suggests.
Slab size, and why bigger is not always better. A large format porcelain looks generous in a showroom and can leave you cutting three of the four edges in a small yard. In a tight space a medium unit or a mixed size pattern lands better, with fewer cuts and cleaner lines against the boundary.
The dig, in a garden with one way in. Turf and topsoil, old concrete, flags on sand, roots and any made ground, all excavated to formation. Access on these plots is generally a side gate, so everything goes in and out by barrow rather than machinery, and the spoil is priced by the load that leaves.
Levels against the house. We scrape back, chalk the DPC on the brickwork and finish the paving two courses below it with a fall running off the wall. Where a threshold has to stay flush, a recessed channel does the work a step would otherwise do, which in a small garden also saves you the floor space a step eats.
Base and bed. Geotextile membrane, MOT Type 1 hardcore compacted in layers, a sharp sand screed to level it, then a full bed of mortar under every slab with a slurry primer on the back. Small area, same build. A proper mortar bed does not go hollow; dabs do, and a hollow slab ends up rocking, cracked and holding water.
Boundaries, edges and steps. A small patio usually meets a fence or a wall on two or three sides, and paving should not run tight against a fence post. The perimeter goes on a haunched kerb or an edging bedded in concrete, retaining gets a coping, and a gravel border along the house wall takes the splashback.
Where the water goes when there is nowhere to send it. The fall runs into an ACO channel or an existing gully, and where a soakaway will not fit at a safe distance from the foundations, a permeable build up takes the runoff through the joints instead. In a small enclosed garden this is the part that most quotes gloss over.
The paving and the joints. Porcelain is calibrated and stays clean in an enclosed yard that sees little sun. Riven sandstone is warmer, limestone and granite wear harder, travertine holds water. Joints take a brush in resin compound, a grout slurry or hand pointing in mortar. Where paving has only sunk or lifted in one bay, or gone slippery with algae and shown efflorescence and staining, we quote the lift and relay.
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.
Paving a garden at ground level is ordinarily permitted development, so planning permission is rarely needed and the government guidance on when permission is required sets out where that stops. There is no conservation area over the village and a single listed entry, so appearance is not controlled. Boundary and retaining walls have their own height limits under the rules on garden walls, which matters more when a patio meets a fence on three sides. The level against the house is building control, 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 terrace where every barrow crosses the kitchen, a semi with a side gate, and a corner plot you can get machinery and a skip onto 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. We are nine miles away, so a rocking slab outside a back door or water standing against the wall in a small yard 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
When the patio is most of the garden
Three Legged Cross grew late. Two fifths of the housing went up between 1983 and 2008, and with it came the plot sizes of that era: neat, efficient and small. On a lot of these properties the patio is not part of the garden, it is most of the garden.
That changes what matters. On a big lawn a patio can be a rectangle in the middle and any mistake has room to hide. In a garden six or eight metres deep every edge meets something: a fence, a boundary wall, a shed, the back of the house. There is nowhere to put a soakaway at a safe distance from the foundations, no spare corner for the spoil, and a slab size chosen for a showroom leaves you cutting most of the perimeter.
So a small patio is not a small job scaled down, it is a job where the details carry more weight. Set the layout out on the ground before anything is ordered. Pick a unit size that works with your dimensions. Decide early whether the water goes to a gully or the build has to be permeable. Get those three right and a small garden can be the best patio on the street.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Three Legged Cross, Verwood Road, Ringwood Road and the lanes towards Verwood and West Moors, broadly BH21, 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
Three Legged Cross questions we get asked
Are large format slabs a mistake in a compact garden?
Often, yes. They need cutting on most edges in a small space, which costs labour and leaves a lot of part slabs on show. A medium unit or a mixed size pattern usually lands better, and we set the pattern out on the ground before anything is ordered.
There is nowhere for a soakaway. What then?
A soakaway has to sit a safe distance from foundations, and in a small garden that distance often does not exist. The answer is either a fall to an existing gully, or a permeable build up that takes the rain through the joints and holds it in the sub base.
Can the patio run right up to the fence?
Not tight against it. Paving hard up to a fence post rots the timber and leaves nowhere for water to go, so we finish with a restrained edge and a small margin. Against a boundary wall the same applies, with a gravel strip rather than mortar.
Is a compact garden a quicker job than a big one?
Less time, but not proportionally less. The setting out, the levels, the drainage and the edges take the same thought either way, and everything is barrowed through a gate. People ask how long: most compact gardens here run to four or five days.
Can you pave the whole garden?
You can, and plenty of people here do. The one thing to think about is water: the more surface you cover, the more runoff there is and the fewer places it can soak away. That is usually the point at which a permeable build up earns its cost.
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Get the layout right before you order a slab
Thomas comes out, marks the shape out on the ground, takes the levels and prices it in writing. The visit and the quote are free.