Patios in Tolpuddle

What comes out first. Old concrete, cracked flags on a sand bed, brick paviours gone soft, a raised bed or a stump and its roots. We excavate to firm formation rather than to a set depth, clear out made ground where we find it, and load the spoil straight into a grab lorry or a skip so the muck away leaves with us.

The sub base. A geotextile separator over soft ground, then MOT Type 1 brought up in compacted layers of about 100mm. Hardcore dumped in one lift and given one pass with a whacker is why so many patios are rocking by their third winter.

The margin at the wall. Under a deep eaves we would rather not run slabs hard up to the brickwork at all. A gravel border on a land drain takes the drip, keeps the splash off a soft old wall, and gives the paving somewhere to shed to. Where the door threshold sits low, an ACO channel across it and a run to a gully or a soakaway does the same job in less width.

Porcelain. Calibrated twenty millimetre porcelain is dense enough that a wet strip under an eaves stays a wet strip rather than becoming a green one. It goes on a full bed of mortar over a slurry primed back, never on dabs, because voids under a dense slab crack.

Stone. Sandstone is warm, easy to work and forgiving, but porous, so it darkens and greens where water lands repeatedly. Limestone is more even and marks with iron. Granite is the hardest and copes best with a permanently damp position. Travertine is not one for Tolpuddle. Hand cut stone varies in thickness, so the bed levels it; calibrated stone is sawn to one depth.

Falls, levels and the damp course. Paving falls away from the building and finishes clear of the DPC, two courses below it where the garden allows, which is the point of Approved Document C. On a cottage with no damp course at all, the answer is a margin, a channel and a step down rather than paving up the wall. Water then goes to a gully, a soakaway or a permeable build so the runoff stays on your ground.

Edges and jointing. Edging bedded and haunched in concrete, a coping to any low retaining wall, a kerb line where paving meets lawn. Stone is hand pointed in a matched mortar or given a brush in compound worked into a full joint; porcelain takes a grout made for dense units. Short joints under a drip line wash out first.

Repairs. Re-bedding a rocking slab, rebuilding a sunken run, swapping cracked units, renewing failed jointing and cleaning down a slippery terrace.

Thomas looks at the Tolpuddle garden, the levels against the house wall, where rainwater runs and how materials will get in. The written quote itemises excavation and muck away, the sub-base, the falls and where the water goes, edgings and steps, the slabs themselves, and jointing. Thomas stays your contact from the first spade to the final brush.

On an older Tolpuddle house the damp proof course, if there is one, sets the finished level, so we check it before anything is dug. Nothing is left as an open trench overnight where somebody could fall, the spoil leaves with us, and paths are swept each day. If the dig finds an old drain or a buried slab, you see a photo and a price for it before the work carries on.

Paving at ground level in a back garden is normally not a planning matter and does not need building control, though drainage joined into an existing system can. What is visible from the road, opening a boundary wall for access, or felling a tree are separate questions. Dorset Council keeps the record of listed buildings, and the village is in the Tolpuddle Conservation Area, so it is worth asking them before changing anything visible.

Ring rather than use the form. A slab lifted at one corner, a step that has dropped or a north facing patio gone green and slippery in winter can put someone on the ground.

If it is the slab by the back door, say so, because that is the one that catches people in the dark. On the first visit we lift and relay the worst of it or mark it off, and then look at whether the sub-base under the rest has failed. Booked patio jobs run Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If we miss you, we ring you back as soon as we can.

Call now: 07435 839745

A cottage with a deep overhang throws water a long way out. Modern houses have a gutter close to the wall and a downpipe into a gully, so paving can run right up to the brickwork. Plenty of the older buildings in Tolpuddle do not work that way, and the slabs nearest the wall take a concentrated line of water every time it rains hard.

That scours the jointing out of one row of joints while the rest of the patio looks fine, and soaks the base under that row until it settles and the slabs start to rock. On a wall with no damp proof course it also drives splash back up the fabric, which is a damp problem rather than a paving one.

So we set the patio out from the drip line first and the door second. A stone margin on a land drain, or a channel where there is no room for one, takes the load. Where thatch is involved we keep the working platform and the machinery clear of the eaves, because a barrow load caught on an overhang costs more than the paving does. It is a small change to the design and it is the difference between a terrace that looks the same in ten years and one that needs lifting in three.

Nearby places we also cover for patios, with straight-line distances from Tolpuddle, and the other trades we offer in Tolpuddle itself.

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