Patios in Winfrith Newburgh

The dig, and what leaves site. An old concrete raft, a run of 1970s pressed flags bedded on nothing much, a raised bed, made ground from a lost outbuilding, or a stump and its roots all come out first.

We excavate to firm formation rather than to a fixed depth, because in Winfrith Newburgh those are not the same number. The spoil is wet and heavy, so muck away is priced by the load, a grab lorry where one can reach the boundary and a skip where it cannot, and it leaves with us.

The sub base. Over soft ground a geotextile separator goes down first, then MOT Type 1 in layers of about 100mm, each one compacted. A single deep dump of hardcore whacked once on top leaves the bottom half loose, and that loose bottom half is what a rocking patio actually is.

Porcelain, and what it is laid on. Twenty millimetre calibrated porcelain suits Winfrith Newburgh, because it takes almost no water, so frost has nothing to work on and algae have little to hold. It goes on a full bed of mortar over a slurry primed back, never on dabs. Blobs leave voids, and a void under a dense slab is a crack waiting for somebody to drop a planter.

Stone. Sandstone is warm and forgiving but porous, and it will green on the shaded side. Limestone is quieter in colour and marks with iron. Granite is the hardest of the three and the least likely to move. Travertine we would talk you out of on ground this wet. Hand cut stone varies in thickness so the bed does the levelling; calibrated stone is sawn to one depth and lays faster.

Falls, levels and the damp proof course. Paving runs away from the building, never along the wall, and finishes clear of the DPC. Approved Document C is why we hold two courses of brick between the paving and the damp course wherever the garden allows. Where the garden is higher than the house, that clearance is bought with a step, a retaining edge and a drainage channel at the threshold, not by building up against the wall.

Edges and jointing. Edging is bedded and haunched in concrete, a kerb line or a coping caps a low retaining wall, and a gravel border along the house takes the drip off the eaves. Stone then gets a brush in compound or hand pointing in a matched mortar, worked into a full joint rather than smeared across the face; porcelain wants a grout suited to a dense unit. Half filled joints let water into the bed, and that is where staining and frost damage start.

Repairs. We do small jobs on their own too: a rocking slab re-bedded, a sunken bay taken up and rebuilt, cracked units swapped, tired jointing raked out and replaced.

Thomas comes to see the Winfrith Newburgh garden, sets out the levels against the house and looks at where water lies after rain. His quote shows the dig and removal, the sub-base, the falls and any drain, edgings and steps, the slabs and the pointing between them, line by line. You have one company to deal with, start to finish.

Access decides the day. A cottage on the Winfrith Newburgh village street may have only a narrow side gate, so every slab and bag goes through by hand. A bungalow with a wide side path or an open field gate at the back is much quicker. Lawns and borders are boarded where we walk. Spoil goes each day and the garden is swept each evening. Old foundations, a buried drain or roots turned up by the dig get a photo and a cost sent to you, and nothing extra happens until you say.

A back garden patio is normally permitted development. On a listed building, anything touching it can need consent, and Dorset Council holds the list of what is designated. Ask them about a conservation area if the patio shows from the road. Parts of the village near the River Win are in flood zones, as the government flood risk service shows, and that shapes the falls and drainage. Paving is not building control work.

Phone rather than using the form. A slab that has lifted, a step that has dropped or a shaded patio gone green and slick is a fall waiting to happen. Put a pot on the worst slab and keep children off it.

Send a photograph while it is raining if you can, because standing water shows where the falls have gone. On the first visit we relay the loose slabs or clean the slippery surface, then look at whether the base under the rest has failed. We schedule work Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If someone could get hurt, ring, and if we miss you we call back as soon as possible.

Call now: 07435 839745

The Win runs through Winfrith Newburgh and the low ground either side of it is mapped in the higher flood zones, which you can check for any address on the government's flood risk service. For a patio that matters in one specific way. A soakaway needs somewhere to put the water, and ground that is already saturated has nowhere to put it.

So on the wet side of Winfrith Newburgh we do not draw a soakaway and hope. Water comes off the paving on the falls, is collected in an ACO channel at the wall or across a low threshold, and runs to a positive outfall: a ditch, a border that can take it, or an existing gully we have proved still runs. Where the levels will not allow that, a permeable build does the job instead, an open graded stone base and permeable jointing holding the rain and letting it go slowly. BS 7533-13 covers how that is put together.

It changes the dig as well. Ground that lies wet will not hold a formation while you work on it, so we cover the excavation overnight and keep the stone going in as it is dug rather than leaving an open hole to fill with rain.

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