Patios in Wareham
The town sits between two rivers on ground that floods, so the instinct to raise a patio out of the wet is the one thing that causes the most trouble here.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
In Wareham the right patio is a low one. Building the surface up to keep it clear of standing water pushes the level towards the damp course and sends the run off next door, so the answer is to keep it down and drain it deliberately.
Three things get us called out. A terrace that holds water in a dish after heavy rain. Paving that has been raised over the years until it is nearly level with the back door. And a walled garden where the old flags have gone rocking and green.
Each of them is answered by levels rather than by slabs. We lift a flag, look at the bed beneath it, run a level off the damp proof course and find out where surface water goes today. Then the whole job goes into one written itemised quote with the excavation, the muck away, the sub base, the edgings, the paving and the jointing listed on their own lines. Both the visit and the quote are free.
The work
Low terraces, walled gardens and where water goes
Taking layers off. A lot of the work here starts by removing what previous owners added. Old paving, concrete and made ground get excavated back to a firm formation and to a sensible height, and the spoil goes out by skip or grab lorry, priced by the load. On the town streets that is barrow work through a passage, which belongs on the quote as its own line.
Base and bedding. Compacted hardcore, MOT type 1, in layers, then a full wet mortar bed with a slurry primer on the back of each slab. Not five dabs, and not a screeded sand bed. On ground that gets wet, a void under a slab is a reservoir and the frost does the rest.
Falls and the damp proof course. The surface falls away from the house and stops at least two courses below the DPC. Where a threshold sits low, a channel along the wall takes the water at the door rather than the paving being lifted to meet it. In a town where the ground is already low, that discipline matters more than anywhere.
Drainage that has somewhere to go. A channel drain at the low end into a gully, a soakaway only where a hole has proved the ground will take one, and a permeable border where the soil drains. Water has to be dealt with on your own land, and in a walled garden with neighbours either side that is not a formality.
Old walls. The back gardens here are often enclosed by old brick or stone. Paving laid tight against the foot of a wall like that traps damp in it and blows the bricks in a hard frost, so we keep a gravel margin along the base and let it breathe.
Materials. Riven sandstone and limestone sit well behind period frontages and are uncalibrated, so each flag is bedded to its own thickness. Granite is the hardest, travertine the softest. Porcelain is calibrated, takes up no water and comes with a published slip rating, which counts on a terrace that stays damp.
Steps, edges and jointing. Steps of a consistent rise, a haunched kerb or a retaining course with a coping to hold the outer row, and joints brushed in with a two part compound rather than sand or a bagged grout, or hand pointed in a softer mix against old work.
Repairs. Sunk, rocking and lifted flags, a cracked step, moss and algae in a shaded walled garden, efflorescence and iron staining on new stone.
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 most of this needs no planning application and no building control notice. Raised terraces and platforms are the exception, and so is a boundary or retaining wall above the usual heights. Dorset Council is the authority, and with the number of listed entries inside the walls a terrace against the building itself may need listed building consent. It is also worth knowing whether an address is in a flood zone before levels are set, and the government service tells you in a minute.
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 house on North Street with a passage through, a cottage with a shared yard and a bungalow on the edge of town with double gates are three different jobs before stone 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 ten miles away, so an address in the town is normally looked at within a day or two, and sooner if water is standing. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
A flood zone is a reason to build low, not high
Wareham sits on low ground between the Frome and the Piddle, and a large part of the town is inside mapped flood zones two and three. You can check any address on the government's flood service in a minute, and it is worth doing before anyone sets a level in your garden.
The instinct on a plot like that is to lift the patio, on the reasonable theory that higher is drier. It rarely ends well. Raising the surface moves the paving closer to the damp proof course, or over it, so the wall starts taking water from the ground. It also displaces whatever used to sit on that patch of garden, which then finds a neighbour's boundary or the wall of the house. And a raised terrace behind a period property is a very different proposition from a patio in planning terms.
What works instead is to keep the level low and design the water out. Take a proper fall away from the building, run a channel at the low end into a gully or an outfall that genuinely goes somewhere, leave a permeable margin where the soil will accept it, and use a jointing compound that will not wash out of the joints when water sits on the surface for a day. Then when the ground does get wet, the patio drains and dries instead of holding it.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover the town inside the walls, Stoborough, Northport, Sandford and out to Ridge, broadly BH20, 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
Wareham questions we get asked
My garden is in a flood zone. Should the patio be raised?
Almost never. Raising it brings the surface closer to the damp course and pushes water onto somebody else's ground. Keeping the level low with a proper fall, a channel and a real outfall deals with the water without creating two new problems.
How do I find out whether my address floods?
The government's own flood service will tell you from a postcode, and it takes a minute. We look it up before setting levels on any garden this side of the bridge, because it changes what we would recommend.
Can a patio be laid against an old garden wall?
Yes, with a gravel margin along the base of it. Paving butted tight to old brick or stone traps moisture in the wall and the face spalls off after a hard frost. A margin lets it dry and catches the drips.
What jointing survives standing water best?
A two part brush in compound, properly worked and cured. Kiln dried sand washes out of the joints the first time water sits on the surface, and once the joints are empty the bed underneath starts going the same way.
Is there vehicle access for the materials in the old streets?
Sometimes not, and it is normal. Everything then goes through the house on boards or through a passage by barrow, and the pallets stay on the road for as short a time as we can manage. It is priced as its own line rather than absorbed.
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Set the levels before you choose the stone
Thomas checks the damp course, the fall and where the water can legally go, then prices the job in writing. The visit and the quote are both free.