Patios in Verwood
The town was largely built in the 1980s, and the paving that went in with those houses is now at the age where it either gets relaid properly or replaced.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most patios we look at in Verwood were laid on five dabs of mortar in the 1980s and have reached the end of that method. The question is whether the slabs are still worth having, because if they are, a relay on a proper bed costs far less than a new terrace.
Three things get us called. A slab that tips when you stand on the corner. Joints that have opened and filled with weed and moss along one edge. And a pressed concrete terrace that has spalled and gone patchy and simply looks tired against a house that has been updated around it.
The answer is decided by lifting one slab. What is underneath tells you whether this is a morning's work, a relay or a rebuild, and it tells you in about ten minutes. We also run a level off the damp proof course while we are there. Then it goes into one written itemised quote with the dig, the muck away, the sub base, the edgings, the paving and the jointing on separate lines. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Lifting, relaying and starting again
Lifting and sorting. Slabs 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 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.
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 normally permitted development, so there is no planning application and no building control notice for most of this. A raised platform is the exception, along with a boundary or retaining wall above the usual heights, where the height rules apply. Dorset Council is the authority, there is no conservation area over the town, and the handful of listed entries in the parish are the only places listed building consent would come into it.
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 bungalow with a gate straight onto the drive, a detached house with a garage blocking the side, and a semi with a narrow path are three different jobs before a pallet is ordered. 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 eleven miles up the road from here, so a Verwood address 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
Forty year old paving and the five dab problem
More than half the housing in Verwood went up between the early 1980s and 2008, and the 1980s was the busiest stretch. Those gardens all got their first patio at roughly the same time, and it was almost always laid the same way: pressed concrete flags on five dabs of mortar over a bed of sand. It was the standard method of the day and it is why so many terraces in this town are misbehaving together.
Dabs fail in a predictable order. The mortar under the corners takes the load, the middle of the slab has a void under it, water gets in through an open joint and sits there, and a frost or two later the slab either rocks or cracks across. Meanwhile the sand washes out sideways because nothing was holding the edge, so the outer row sinks and the joints open further. None of that is a fault in the slabs. It is the bedding method reaching its natural end.
Which is why the useful question here is not what to buy but what to keep. Lift a slab and look. If the flags are sound, the sensible spend is a proper excavation, a compacted sub base and a full mortar bed under the paving you already own, with a real edge restraint and a jointing compound that stays put. If the flags have spalled and gone patchy, put the money into new paving instead and build it once.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Verwood, Three Legged Cross, Edmondsham and out towards West Moors and Alderholt, broadly BH31, 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
Verwood questions we get asked
Is it cheaper to relay my existing slabs than buy new?
Usually, because there is nothing to buy and nothing to bring in. The saving is the material, not the labour, since the dig, the base and the bedding are the same either way. It only stops making sense once the slabs themselves have failed.
What is wrong with laying slabs on dabs?
It leaves a void under the middle of every slab. Water gets in, sits there and freezes, and the slab rocks or cracks. It is quick on the day and it is why so much 1980s paving is uneven now.
How do I tell whether my slabs are worth keeping?
Turn one over. If the face has spalled away, if it is cracked through, or if it crumbles at the edges, it has done its time. Sound flags with a bit of weathering on them clean up and go back down looking better than you expect.
Can you just fix the few slabs that rock?
Yes, and sometimes that is the right answer. We lift the loose ones, rebuild the bed underneath and reset them. If half the terrace is moving, spot repairs are money spent twice and we would say so.
Why do the edges of my patio always sink first?
Because there is nothing holding them. Without a haunched kerb or a retaining course the bed migrates sideways under load and the outer row follows it. Putting a proper restraint in is a large part of what stops it happening again.
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Lift one slab and find out what you are dealing with
Thomas lifts a slab, looks at the bed under it and tells you honestly whether to relay or replace, in writing. The visit and the quote are free.