How do you make a patio?

Street

Street

Street

Soldato
Joined
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Liverpool
As I'm off work for the next 11 days as of tomorrow I figured I might as well do something constructive and sort my patio out at my house.

At the moment, just outside the back door there is a small area made with horrible slabs leading onto a path that runs down the side of the house. I want to raise and level the whole top area out and then just have a step or something down to the path at the bottom so that I have a larger area thats more suitable for BBQs and to have a table and chairs there.

Here is a professional architects drawing that I had made up..
patioplan.jpg

Before on the left and after on the right.

My question is, whats the best way of going about raising and leveling the top area out? I've never done anything like that before so I'm not too sure..

Also what the hell can I do with 15 massive 3x2 foot slabs that weigh about 60kg each?!
 
Last edited:
I cannot offer any useful advice regarding the construction of the aforementioned patio, but what I can point out is that this thread needs pics!
 
The easiest and cheapest way to get this done would to be:

Dig up old slabs & sell/smash up and put in skip or re-use to make a step out of.
Level off ground and cover with some form of membrane to stop weeds and **** growing.
Then deck the area in which ever method would be best.

Leveling up the ground with earth would cost a fair bit I imagine.
 
Looking at the sketches you provided it looks like you wish to extend the paving area over what is currently soft landscaping. This would mean you would need to clear the soft landscaping and compact the ground until level. You would then need to provide a sub-base material suitable to provide a grounding for the paving (i.e. hardcore etc). On top of this you would lay a sand bedding course 20-50mm thick and then your new paving slabs would go on top.

You also say you wish to 'raise' the paving level some idea would be helpful on what increase in level your after. If the increase is small 10-30mm you could achieve this in sand bedding if it is more you would need to lay additional sub-base up to the required formation level.

The step is the tricky part and may be required to be constructed in concrete in order to provide a firm enough construction.

I am not a builder but I work in the industry and that where my knowledge is from. If your not into your DIY then I would suggest this might be work for a landscape company.
 
Doing this myself this week.

Dig up slabs. Dig down and level off soil. Get 40mm scalpings (caluclators online for how much you need to cover surface area with 50-100mm).

Lay scalpings with slight fall to your drainage point;usually fall away from house, but i can't do that so i wll put linear drainage running along the house and the water will run into a french drain/soakaway.

Compact with whacker plate.

Use grit sand cement mix for your slab bed

lay slabs.

Admire work with cold beer!:)
 
hi street,
i am a groundworker and do this for a living, so i should be able to help.
but it can be difficult to describe the process.

first of all, you say you want to raise the patio so its level with the top level
how high is it you need to raise?, bearing in mind you need to build in a fall for water to flow away from the house
we usually allow 30-50mm per 1m

if the step is less than 6" then use a normal path edging kerb.
between 6" and 10 you can use a concrete gravel board, some of these come with a pattern imprinted on them so can look nice.
any higher it usually means a brick wall or use the slabs as the retaining wall.

also as you will have to fill in the raised section, can you not break the slabs and reuse them as hardcore?

also some more tips here on a different thread http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18264118
 
Mr.Pink said:
Doing this myself this week.

Dig up slabs. Dig down and level off soil. Get 40mm scalpings (caluclators online for how much you need to cover surface area with 50-100mm).

Lay scalpings with slight fall to your drainage point;usually fall away from house, but i can't do that so i wll put linear drainage running along the house and the water will run into a french drain/soakaway.

Compact with whacker plate.

Use grit sand cement mix for your slab bed

lay slabs.

Admire work with cold beer!:)
Click to expand...

1 ton of MOT Type1 laid at approx 50mm thick will cover an area of 10m2
100mm thick will be 5m2 etc...
but everything else is right ;)
 
Thanks for the replies!

The total patio area is about 3.2m x 5.7m and I need to raise about 3.2m x 3.8 of it up by 6inches to match the height of the rest.
 
Efour2 said:
Pay the next paddy that knocks on the front door 500 quid and 1 will appear.
Click to expand...

you are lucky i have a sense of humor ;):p

to op
if its only six inches, you can use a path edging kerb or go to a local builder suppliers and look at block paving kerbs, the are 2 main types, one is 8" high, this would be ideal as you can get them different colours and you can have 2" concreted into the ground

what are you using to lay the patio?
is it slabs or block paving?
 
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