Patios in Three Legged Cross

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 Three Legged Cross 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.

A Three Legged Cross patio has no rate per square metre. The slabs you pick are the smallest part of the price. The route in. Wide gates at the side of a detached house make it easy. A bungalow with a narrow path, or a terraced house where the only way is a shared passage, means every slab and every barrow of spoil goes by hand along that route, and that adds days.

What comes out first. Lawn, an old concrete base, a raised bed or roots are dug out and carted away, priced by the load.

The sand. Three Legged Cross sits on sand and gravel over heathland sand, which drains freely. Loose sand needs the sub-base compacted in layers over a membrane and firm edges so the slabs cannot creep. A soakaway usually works here once a percolation test proves it, if there is room clear of the house.

Height against the house. A new patio must fall gently away from the back wall, and its top must stay well below your damp proof course. On a sloping garden that can mean a step, a low retaining edge or a slot drain, and each is priced separately.

Ask anyone quoting how deep they will dig, whether each slab sits on a full mortar bed, and where the rainwater will end up.

We lay patios in Three Legged Cross, along Verwood Road and Ringwood Road, and in the lanes towards Verwood and West Moors. It is about nine miles from our base in Boscombe, and Dorset Council is the authority.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, belongs to Thomas Hannen. He looks at your garden and writes the price himself. There is a verified 10 out of 10 from a customer on Checkatrade. You pay nothing for the visit or for the written quote with each item listed. Small plots usually mean a short front drive too, and a driveway in Three Legged Cross can be priced on the same visit. Before you book a visit in Three Legged Cross, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Three Legged Cross need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.