laying a patio tips and help

looks like I will be having a crack at a patio myself later this summer. ive done a decent amount of reading and im pretty good at internal tiling so i reckon it is doable

couple of questions though….i will be using porcelin tiles, mostly over the old garage slab and a bit over the old patio

i need to level this up ideally to the door sill height. the slab is about 11cm below the door. pavers are 20mm, a mortar bed would be 40mm. so that leaves 50mm. whats the best way to level up the slab? layer of sand on top? the plan is to use engineering bricks on the outer edges of the subbase to hold it in place.

drainage, im looking at channel floplast channel drains from screwfix up agaist the house as the height of the pavers will be just below dampcourse

and…. i know i need to have a fall. how do you ensure you get the right fall over say 5m. i have a pretty long level but its not thay long!

anything else you learnt when you did the job is appreciated.

(its likely to be diy as at the moment i cant even get people to turn up to look at the job)

This post will be exhibit A

wife is the reason for the patio yes. she is the client, not tthe foundations….!

I tend to stick an appropriately sized allen key or something under one end of my level to get the fall consitent. I’m sure there’s a better way of doing it, perhaps something clever with string, or something else imaginative, but that’s always worked for me.

(Disclaimer – IANA patio layer, I build stone walls and use this method when I’m doing steps.)

No help but get someone else to do it…

Get someone else to do it and make sure they use concrete and don’t fob you off with sand for ‘drainage reasons’

speaking from experience with regret

I would have thought you’d want to be laying the porcelain tiles directly onto the concrete and not using sand directly under them. That’s what my builder did when I watched him do mine. And also to use some sort of primer (slurry type) to get the mortar/tile interface solid. IANA patio fitter either, but I am about to embark on quite a large cobbled edge gravel path project so I’ll follow the responses with interest.

Prime the tiles, mortar will find any excuse not to stick.

Slurry mix on the back of the tiles, or they won’t stick. Although that has the benefits of easy removal to add another body under it when the need arises.

1800 level across the tiles as you go, doesn’t need a massive fall to get the water off.

To bring the base up, I’d do a concrete pour, not sand, personally.

As you already have an established base, have you looked at pedestals, if they are compatible with the chosen slabs?

https://www.pavingexpert.com/

That site is the Sheldon Brown of laying slabs and patios. Everything you need is contained within.

Get some one else to do it…yea ok if they turn up I will

if I tile straight onto the concrete it will be lower than we want by 5cm, hence me asking how to bring the level up.

what I’ve read it you take out the whole lot and lay a new sub base, but no way I’m doing that, it’s been down since the 50s and is almost 2 feet thick in places going one when I had to cut some fence posts in,..

potentially I could make a really deep mortar like 9cm thick, haven’t found anything about whether that’s ok to do or not.   Trying to find out the best way to bring that level up by 5cm.  Of course I could tell my client (aka wife) it’s not doable and have to deal with a 5cm drop from the threashold.  Probably not the end of the world

Neighbour has a mixer, I have a breaker, concrete saw and whacker so should be good for having the right kit.

and yep read about primer that’s on the list

what is the thing called that covers a drain cover with tiles?  Searching isn’t helping at the moment.  Like a hollow metal cover you can tile inside that replaces the horrible black plastic thing we currently have

Didn’t realise you could get pedestals for slabs. Heard of them used for decking before….. off to research,  slabs have been picked but not ordered yet, so time to change,  tbh they are bloody expensive so if I can find an excuse to go for something cheaper i will!  My estimate for labour is 2 guys roughly 4 days.  This is a on approx 40m2 patio with no fancy bits, other than a drain to deal with and pulling the levels up

I’d say a 5cm drop seems a little excessive.

Get the old sub base clean as possible (jet wash?) and then apply a bonding agent before you lay 2/3/4 inches of new concrete?
(not sure where the 9cm in your post comes into the picture) Prime slabs and slap em down on top.

Not sure if it’s the right way but to get the fall on my decking I laid a plumb line level, then calculated the correct fall, marked that on the downhill peg and then moved the line down and then laid against that as a reference.

“the height of the pavers will be just below dampcourse”

150mm below the damp course if you want to stay within building regs.. I didn’t dig the base for ours down far enough to start with and had to go another 3″ down.

i believe if you put a channel drain in it solves the problem of the patio being too close to the damp proof course. seen loads of houses with flush patios to bifolds so it must be doable

depth wise, existing slab is 11cm below where we want it. paver is 2cm thick so 9cm total to make up. assuming 4cm mortar leaves me with 5cm. (approx)

don’t fob you off with sand for ‘drainage reasons’

I went down the sand and gravel route for drainage and future modification options. Laid 3m * 7m . Not perfect but way better than the previous flags. Did a reasonable job of the runoff and dug a french drain beneath the last row to help with the soak away from the garden as well. Cost about 1k and was able to build another 1.8*2.4m base elsewhere with the surplus porcelain flags.

Best quote for someone to chuck a load of mortar down and fix em to the ground was £2k plus flags. Money saved was spent on patio furniture and a few holidays.

Big patio in the distance. Small patio with the dragon on it. All the furniture covers the minor errors. Don’t expect the porcelain to remain super clean and stain free. This lot has had dirt ingrained into it which is hard to clean out. There are some porcelain patio sealers on the market that claim to make the situation better. 🤔

loving the fire pit dragon that is awesome! where did you get that?

wife wants white porcelin which im thinking is a bad idea and really show up any marks. off grey with a varied pattern seems much more sensible.

the paving expert guy has a book out so Ive bought it

I’ve done one patio with the leveller pedestals. Never again, absolutely shite to work with. 6x7m of pain. The base needs to be pretty much perfect, and the built in spacers were poorly formed, so it was a pig to get the grout lines even. Also depends on the quality of the porcelain, as if they bow, you have to keep swapping them to get the 4 corners flat where the tiles meet.

The tiles are also more susceptible to cracking, as the tiles are only supported in the corners.

In case you can’t guess, I don’t rate them!

wife is the reason for the patio yes. she is the client, not tthe foundations….!

You do realise that’s how it often starts out?

wife wants white porcelin which im thinking is a bad idea and really show up any marks

The podcast is writing itself.

DT78
Free Member
wife is the reason for the patio yes. she is the client, not tthe foundations….!

In hindsight mistakes were made m’lud.

loving the fire pit dragon that is awesome! where did you get that?

Bought the dragon from a craft fair in Hawes from a mystical traveling sales man called Plasma Willy. Probably easy enough to find on FB. Not a true rocket stove design but the flames work ok when you balance the fire in the mouth rather than the bottom of the mouth air channel.

White porcelain would be difficult to keep showroom clean unless it was sealed and smooth. The grey porcelain flags I used have a fine grippy surface that seems to trap dirt. Rusty stains also get into the porcelain hence the dragon being placed on scraps of wood.

“i believe if you put a channel drain in it solves the problem of the patio being too close to the damp proof course. seen loads of houses with flush patios to bifolds so it must be doable”

Good point. Where ours is going is a low spot so I’m being cautious, drain is going in too but you’re right – maybe old regs I read.

Following this one..

I did our 40m2 2 years back and it’s still like the day I laid it after 2 winters.

I dug out and put 100mm of mot1, whackered down, then laid a 60mm semi dry concrete mix base with SBR added to it, then laid the porcelain that we slurry coated with a cement/sbr mix using a lean compo bed with SBR add mix, I also SBR’s the top of the semi dry concrete before dropping the compo on.

porcelain pavers need to be solid bed on concrete to work IMO.  You don’t want them moving or they’ll look shite and crack out the grout.

Does your 90mm number allow for fall?  If so I reckon you could get a 60mm semi dry mix on top of your existing base using SBR as a primer, then lay porcelain on a thinner bed to the finished level.  You could also just lay it all onto much thicker compo bed and miss out the semi dry layer as a screed much thinner than 50mm tend to try and curl upwards at the edges as it dries.

The soffit overhang of the house prevents a lot of the rain bounce at the base of the wall near the patio doors. I raised the level by at least 10cm but left 15cm gap between the flag and the wall and filled it with gravel for drainage topped off with recycled TV glass that looks like irregular pebbles.

I managed a flush paver grass interface where there was once a step embedded in concrete that didn’t help the garden drainage one bit.

The non fixed down pavers mean that I can also easily swap out the flags if needed. There is a possibility of buying some different pavers to decorate certain areas of the patio to break up the monolithic grey that is currently there.

When I did mine, I had a not-flat/concave concrete base. I couldnt be arsed with breaking it all up so,  I built a wooden frame in the shape I wanted (luckily a rectangle) and built it up to the desired height. Mixed cement/sand mix stuff built up the base with this and then slurried the backs of (sandstone) slabs, positioned as required.

Not the greatest paving job in the world, but I learnt a lot.

Did mine with pedestals 6 years ago, easy to “lay” and they look as good now as there did then.

For me so much easier than building a base up, as I have a retaining wall all around the patio, and defo a whole lot cheaper.

You need self levelling (swivel type head/top), adjustable ones for a super easy install.

I’ve got a big box full of SF/adjustable 130mm- 240mm in my garage, as I over ordered…. You could cut them down if you wanted to easily enough  (I did, to get over a raised man hole cover)

Hit me up of pics and advice (although there is much to advice to give they are so easy to do)

@Ro5ey Sounds like you have much better ones than we were supplied with! Ours only did 10mm total adjustment, which over 40ish m² was a killer!

General question about fall – I’ve been looking at fall, I didn’t realise it was quite so much needed, my 11cm is total depth at highest point over a 4.5m length, so if I’m right I want in calculating the fall of 1:60, I need a total drop of 7.5cm.  This is assuming the old garage slab is level.  which it mostly seems to be, though it is hard to check

So this makes the depth about right at the farthest point.  So I only need to raise up the sections closest to the house rather than the whole thing.

@Ro5ey what was the brand you used?

Couple more questions if that is ok –

Does the base need to be completely flat for them to sit right (looks like it?).  In one section I will have pulled up slabs so there will be a pitted subbase

Did you bother with a fall on the slabs given the benefit is that is can drain away underneath?

Did you fit them flush or leave a gap?  I’m guessing there is no way to grout (part of the benefit)

I have a drain to hide so fitting over / round it with these could work….and I like the ease of running cables underneath for lighting.  Saves me the headache of trying to future proof stuff now and fitting conduit

Nope … they are adjustable… but base has to be firm.

No fall … any water is confined to the paver it sits on. I’ve a big squeegee I push around, if its rained over night and I know we want to use the patio early, the water just falls between the gaps…. No grout !!!

On the edges you just trim (with a saw) the flanged tops and bottoms of the pedestals, so that the main body can sit up close to the wall.

I’ve got say having a patio that is at the same approx. height as your inside floors is lovely. I know it a little thing but I think it makes a big difference.

As for make, I don’t know… I just trawled the net for a while and found some that where pretty cheap, (it’s just molded plastic out of sight) Think I paid about £4 a unit…. some were £6+

I’ve 96 left over …. £175 posted

fwiw I was working on 1 in 80 from a few guides, a friend of mine who did a large patio himself and works in drainage says just 1% is enough. You might not need 1 in 60 but if it’s easy to achieve, all good.

running cables underneath for lighting

That’s a good idea.