Doing own patio

[candlefloozy]

I'm thinking of doing my own patio. I want a large area turned into it. But have never done anything like this before. Can anyone help?

We did ours - the simple way is with slabs laid onto sand (added advantage is you can lift and reuse)

Level the area, to reduce weeds put a membrane down that allows moisture through but not weeds (eBay is good for big cheap rolls) cover with sharp sand about one inch thick, lay slabs then brush sand in gaps. Alternatively if you want to permanently fix you can dry mix sand and cement instead of just sand, then once laid you soak with water.

We do option one because we change our garden around ever so often, built extension etc

@stucknoue thank you so much. I'll have a look on eBay. I think we want it down permanently so might do the cement option. It all needs digging out too. But we've been quoted so much. If we did it ourselves I think we'd save about 1k on labour alone

Well there is a bit more to it than an inch of sand if you want it to stay level for any length of time. You probably want more like 4 inches of hard core (mot sub base type 1) compacted with a vibrating plate, then lay the slabs an a 2 inch bed of mortar. Make sure you lay it with a slight incline (an inch or 2 per yard) to allow water to drain. It's a lot of work, and you need more hard core and mortar than you expect. That is why it costs a lot to pay someone to do it.

@ThereIsNoSuchThingAsRoadTax thank you. I've been watching videos about the incline. I just don't have the extra money to pay anyone to do it

We're doing most of ours at the moment but we're getting in someone to do the actual laying.

We have dug out 5-10 tonnes of soil, gitvrid of that in a skip, then filled with 12 tonnes of stone (100mm) which needs contacting and levels setting. There's the drain to lay and tJunction into the disk away and then finally the tiles to lay (we've bought and shifted these too 2.5 tonnes).

Our builder quoted 1-2 weeks so hopefully we've saved ourselves 1 week of his time (materials and disposal still costs) .

@didireallysaythat that was also something else I thought about. Doing most of the hard work and then just paying for it to be laid and also getting the materials myself.

@candlefloozy that's was our plan (plus we wanted to have a go with a digger). If you can find a builder who is happy to give you advice on depths you can definitely do a lot yourself. We know we aren't accurate to line up and cut the porcelain tiles ourselves

@didireallysaythat I'm desperate to have a go
On a digger!

I was wondering about this as bought some paving slabs yesterday. Haven’t looked at this at all and have no idea of cost but was wondering whether it would be possible to use those Ecogrid things that hold gravel as a sub base?

I think you might still need 100mm aggregate beneath that.