How to build a patio?

[bonniethomas06]

Very excited, my lovely neighbour has given me some old roof tiles - shed loads of them, to build a patio. This is exactly what I was looking for as we need a seating area and these will suit our old house much more than the run of the mill B&Q ones. By the way, they are not thin, they are about an inch thick - some thicker in places and charmingly have numbers on them, and holes where they were nailed on. I realise they may not be the longest lasting in the frost etc but it is a sheltered spot, so I am hoping this will be OK, and if it isn't, it is not the end of the world.

The only thing is...I am inept. At DIY. They will be going on a surface which is now lawn - I assume that I need to obviously clear the turf, and then flatten the surface down really well, and then lay something like gravel? Then what to put on top of the gravel to make the tiles stick?

I have googled it, but seem to have lots of conflicting instructions.Please could someone give me idiot-proof instructions for laying a level patio? Oh should have mentioned, my budget is about £1.50

Any advice from the savvy would be wonderful.

[oldjerry]

Usually ,Bonnie,you'd lay them flat on sand(all lovely and level etc.)then mix half sand\cement dry sweep into the gaps,nice and level between the slabs,then hose,or await the rain.However ,some people would stick a dollop of wet sand \cement mix in each cornerunder the slabs\tiles then do the dry mix thing.As your tiles are of varying thickness,do this.You need a spirit level,2 people,and patience.Lay them all out first if you havent done it before.

Just do it. It'll be great.(get a decent pair of builders gloves,and some lanolin-based hand cream).Best Wishes.

[boboff]

Well to do it properly you need to dig up turf, and dig down so you can lay 150mm of Sub Base, or Half inch to Dust, or 803. Whacker plate this down and level, then you either lay down 100mm or so of sand, or bed in concrete. Once gone off point the gaps with concrete, or dry mix and brush in. Make sure there is a slope running away from the house or into any drain.

Doing it on the cheap? Dig out turf get spade deep, line with DPC or Woven Membrane, Get dumpy bags of Aggregate, 1 tonne for each 5 m2 so 5x5mtr = 25, 5 bags, £200, Cement 8 bags per tonne ish, 8x5x6 £240, then mix pour and lay the tiles in the top ala Crazy paving but nicely.

It's not really cheap I know, but you will get a decent slab with no weeds, and the "pointing" which takes ages woun't need to be done.

You never know, some Ready Mix companies will send a part delivery into you cheap if they have some left of board.

[grahamhobbs]

You say they are roof tiles, so I guess they are fairly small compared with paving slabs, in which case you cannot lay on a sand bed with guaranteed success. You need either to lay on a concrete slab (as Boboff suggested) or a well tamped hardcore base, each at least 4" thick.

In both cases, but particularly for a hardcore base you need excavate down to a sufficient level allowing for the base, sand and tiles but also to where the soil is firm.

A hardcore base you may be able to provide for little or no cost if you can scavenge the material, which needs to be broken bricks, lumps of concrete, jagged stones or the such like (but not lightweight thermalite type blocks), broken into small pieces and tamped down tight. This is to provide a hard, well compacted base, however it is labour intensive using club and sledge hammers. Then lay about 2" of coarse sharp sand (sometimes called screeding sand) mixed with 1/5 cement but only enough water to make the mix slightly damp (A tonne bag of sand will do about 8sqm with 6 bags of cement). Tamp and level this with timber. On top of this lay the tiles. If the tiles are not the same thickness you will have to add more of the sand/cement mix to make them all level.

With a concrete base you do not need 2" of sand, perhaps only 1", sufficient to bed the tiles and a slightly wetter mix will make the job easier.

Depending on the pointing style you want you can mix up a similar sand/cement mix but dry and brush this into the gaps between the tiles, then gently spray on water to set the pointing. Alternatively you can physically point between the tiles using a trowel and a wetter mix, this is a stronger more permanent solution but can tend to look rather harsh unless you brush over it after it has started to set but before it really sets hard.

[contadina]

We compacted down our old living room and kitchen tiles, with their original screed still attached to use as the sub-base, and then laid a cement screed before laying paving slabs (more like crazy paving off cuts, but you get what you pay for ). In the UK you would need to add gravel, I suspect, as the sand is not, generally limestone-based. As Boboff suggests, it then needs pointing, which gave us the opportunity to add a few ceramic off-cuts of different colours to add some interest. If the tiles are free it shouldn't cost a lot, especially if you can reuse some debris for the sub-base.

My husband has just informed me that the ideal gradient is 1:17, to ensure that rain won't collect on the patio (it feels like it's level but the rain will run off it, scientifically proven, apparently).

Are your roof tiles load bearing though Bonnie, as they are designed to have water bounce off them rather than people. It would be a shame to go to all that effort only for it to crack and splinter.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I've used both the "rigourous" approach described by Boboff and the sand / dollop / dry mix suggested by OJ and both have given very satisfactory results. Like they say, just get on and do it: take your time and it will be easier than perhaps you imagine. A rubber mallet is usful. If you can manage a 5mm per meter slope away from the house, all the better. Whatever, make sure that you leave the damp course on the house (look for the extra wide band of mortar about a foot up) ABOVE the patio. Sorry if you already realised that, but, as they say, assumption is the mother of all f*** ups.

[bonniethomas06]

Thanks everyone, I will have a bash and let you know how it goes. It isn't next to the house, it is in the garden in the middle of nowhere so drainage is not so much of a problem. And I see your point about the roof tiles contadina, but my neighbour used the slabs in her garden and so far (3 years later) they are doing fine - so will risk it.

Thanks for all the excellent advice, I will have a think and try to get the materials together. But a question about the tamping down thing - do I need to hire a whacker, or can I just stamp it really really hard, for a really really long time?

[boboff]

It really depends on you sub strate, if it's been recently dug over, it's a must, but if it's been sat "resting" for ages it might be ok, again if its really wet, and will dry out, I would be more likely to whacker, it's just to help the underneath not move, as if it settles you will get cracks, the cracks will get water and freeze and get bigger etc etc.

The end of a sledge hammer works reasonably well, i.e. held vertically and dropped, or get a car to drive over it if you can, or a 200ltr blue barrel filled with water and rolled, or a portly neighbour doing river dance?

[contadina]

or a 200ltr blue barrel filled with water and rolled, or a portly neighbour doing river dance?

We managed to combine the two, well almost, we got a very game HelpXer to go over the hardcore with a water-filled recycled gas bottles attached to the rotivator many, many times. He also proved very handy when it came to laying a screed. You can see the gas bottle's after we took them off, in the picture with the dogs playing on the sand http://contadina.growveg.info/2011/07/3 ... ight-work/ and our handy helper laying the screed here http://contadina.growveg.info/2011/08/06/468/ .

[Thomzo]

Thanks everyone, I will have a bash and let you know how it goes. It isn't next to the house, it is in the garden in the middle of nowhere so drainage is not so much of a problem.

I suggest you still think about a slope and which way the water will run off. If you make the patio completely level or with dips in it, the water will puddle and encourage algae to grow. In the winter it will freeze which will damage the patio. Decide where you want the water to run off to. In heavy rain, this area will get very damp so an ideal environment for blueberries or other moisture loving plants.

Good luck with it, it'll be lovely when it's done. You could think about deliberately leaving gaps that you can fill with herbs. Lovely to walk on.

Zoe