Patio Stones/Slabs - what do we want?

[FumiYamamoto]

What do we use if we want a clean looking patio? We have a hose and all I want to do before I potter about bare-foot outside (dreams of summer) is hose the stones.

Never had a patio before (very small area so will cover completely and then put in plants in pots)

[MillyMollyMama]

The most successful stone we have used is genuine York stone direct from a quarry. However it is expensive and comes in different depths so is difficult to lay. It is wonderful though and very natural. I have used Indian sandstone which is lots cheaper but it now has black spots all over it and looks dreadful. These marks do not clean off, either.

A good range of pavers is available from Marshall's and we have used their heritage range. I think you could also use ceramic very successfully as supplied by Porcelanosa. They have a more even appearance and suit modern houses in my view. The main thing is to lay them as professionally as you can so they do not settle and then crack. We are crap as DIY, so we had a company who specialise in paving to do it. Very pleased we did!

[FumiYamamoto]

That's interesting Milly. I hadn't come across York stone before but Indian Sand stone was one that was mentioned. Hate with a passion dirty or grubby looking stone in patio areas and it always makes me not want to use them so we want to get this right.

Did you seal your York stone?

[truelymadlysleepy]

www.mandarinstone.com/product/_/41/campione-tumbled-limestone-tile/?cid=11#.U1OICl6z4jI
I really like the look of these ones.

[ContentedSidewinder]

Here is a picture of mine, the retaining wall is now clad in red cedar to hide the horrid foundation blocks.

There can be lots of problems with limestone, we really wanted it but went with indian sandstone in the end after visiting the not so local quarry.

The delivery was something of a nightmare as the pallets are extremely heavy and they will only deliver curbside. So in other words, they dump the crates on your drive using a hand pump fork lift. It was hair raising when they were bringing it off the truck. I seriously thought it was going to topple off the edge of the lift.

I had just had a kitchen extension built so had the builders merchants delivering weekly and slipped them £20 to pick up the crates from our drive and swing it over our wall into our back garden (like they had with all our deliveries) but clearly they could have declined to lift £700 worth of stone.

Be aware of laying methods, we had the dry method where they lay sand and cement in a dry mix and place each slab down. So that is more labour intensive but a better way to lay and I paid extra for the slabs to be the same thickness. The thickness of each slab can vary wildly.

It has been down just under a year and we absolutely love it.

[FumiYamamoto]

Truly those stones look lovely but I read on the website that they might not be the best in terms of staining.

Contented thank you for your photo. It looks good. Have you sealed the stone? Has it weathered at all? What do you do in terms of cleaning it?

[ContentedSidewinder]

Didn't need sealing, it has weathered well over winter, but it will need a clean because there are some bits of green where algae or something has formed but we have a karcher pressure washer anyway with the patio attachment so will be giving it the once over with that.

Re limestone the staining part was the reason we avoided it. We are very lazy and just wanted to wash it a twice a year! Didn't want to mess around with sealant etc.

My builder was fab and he had sandstone put down years ago, never sealed it and just washes it around 4 times a year which is hardly taxing. (he's a perfectionist which is why I chose him) He had also laid around 20 sandstone patios in the last 6 months! So it was easy for him and his builder mate to lay ours without even thinking about it.

Mine looks different wet than dry - you can see that in my photo as there is a wet circle and an arc from where I had used the hose pipe for something.

I actually got mine from this company, I had to order two packs from here My photo only shows one part of the patio, it goes round the extension which is the wall on the right of the photo.

Always go an see stuff in real life, we went to a quarry but didn't order from them as the range was 18-25mm which can be quite a difference in slab thickness.

Even though mine was 22mm calibrated so technically all the same, the bottoms were pretty much flat but the tops have different thicknesses as the sandstone cleaves so it isn't all flat like a concrete slab, there are natural undulations if that makes sense.

[ScaryMcLary]

You could take a look at London Stone if you don't mind stretching a bit on cost, they do really modern clean looking stone. We have sawn buff sandstone for a couple of years now and just put down Algex when it goes green and DH pressure washes it once a year. It is clean bright and sunny looking. I haven't had any problems with staining, but I can imagine if bird poo was left and baked in the sun for several days if could be hard to shift; leaves and berries seem to come off ok though.

[domesticslattern]

Do have a google for ethical stone. Some other stone is quarried by kids as young as ten.
bbc article about ethical stone
And don't go for dark slate like we did, it looks filthy all the time!

[FumiYamamoto]

contented thanks for that info.

Scaryclary how funny, a friend today recommended London Stone and I see that they have a good ethical policy in place domesticslattern

Think I'll go and look there next weekend. Thank you all.