Patios in Verwood

Lifting and sorting comes first. Slabs from a Verwood patio come up, get stacked and looked at one at a time. Riven sandstone and good concrete flags usually clean up and go back. Pressed concrete that has lost its face, or anything cracked through, is not worth the labour of relaying and goes off site with the rest.

What is under a 1980s patio. Usually sand, a bit of rubble and five dabs of mortar per slab, straight onto whatever the garden was. We excavate that back to a firm formation, and the spoil goes by skip or grab lorry, priced by the load rather than by the metre.

Rebuilding the base. Compacted hardcore, MOT type 1, in layers, whacked as it goes, then a full wet mortar bed under every slab with a slurry primer on the back. That single change is the difference between paving that lasts a couple of decades and paving that starts rocking again in three winters.

New paving. Porcelain if you want it clean and low maintenance: calibrated, absorbing nothing, with a published slip rating and tight even joints. Sandstone, limestone, granite or travertine if you want warmth, all mostly uncalibrated, so each slab is bedded to its own thickness.

Falls, thresholds and the damp proof course. Water goes away from the house and the surface finishes at least two courses below the DPC. On a bungalow with a low back door that means dropping the level and running a threshold drain along the wall rather than building up to the frame.

Edges, steps and retaining. The original edges on these Verwood gardens are often nothing at all, which is why the outside row has crept and dropped. A haunched kerb or a retaining course with a coping fixes it, along with steps of an even rise and drainage behind anything holding ground back.

Drainage and jointing. A channel drain at the low end into a gully or a soakaway so runoff stays on your own land, a permeable border where the ground will take it, and joints brushed and worked in with a two part compound rather than the kiln dried sand that washed out of the last one.

Repairs on their own. A handful of sunk or rocking slabs, a cracked step, algae on a shaded strip, or efflorescence and iron staining on newer stone can all be dealt with without touching the rest.

The slabs are what you pick, and usually the smaller part of the bill. Getting materials through. A bungalow with a gate straight from the drive lets a barrow run in. A detached house with the garage blocking the side, or a semi with a narrow path, means carrying every slab and bag of sharp sand. The work at height rules still cover steps and machinery.

The ground. Clay that shrinks in summer and swells in winter moves a shallow base. A deeper, well compacted sub-base and good drainage stop the slabs rocking a year later.

Clearing first. An old concrete slab, a raised bed or tree roots all have to be dug out and taken away, priced by the load.

Level and falls. A patio must fall away from the house and finish at least two courses below the damp proof course. At a patio door that can mean a step or a channel drain.

The bed. A full mortar bed under each slab, not dabs, stops them cracking.

Ask other quotes what sub-base goes in and how deep, whether slabs are on a full bed, which way the falls go, and what the jointing is.

We lay patios in Verwood, Three Legged Cross, Edmondsham, and out to West Moors and Alderholt, working from our base in Boscombe about ten miles south. Dorset Council is the council here. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Verwood, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Its owner is Thomas Hannen, who comes to walk your garden and put the price together. A verified customer left a 10 out of 10 for us on Checkatrade. Nothing is charged for the visit or for the itemised quote in writing. Many of the drives went down in the same decade on the same method, and driveways in Verwood are often worth relaying too.

Most repairs in Verwood 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.