The questions we get asked most
Ground, drainage and planning
The three things that decide whether a job is simple or not.
Not if the surface is permeable, or if the water runs to a soakaway or a border rather than into the road. Solid paving over five square metres draining to the highway does need it. We design for the first every time, and it is cheaper than the second anyway.
Into a soakaway sized for the area, or to a permeable joint on setts and gravel. Never into the foul drain, which is illegal, and never at the house — finished level stays 150mm below the damp course.
Then it needs depth and a geogrid, and we will say so at the measure. Clay is not a reason to avoid stone, it is a reason to dig further, and the quotation will show you exactly how far.
Sometimes — if it is sound, falls the right way and the finished level still works. We will tell you honestly, because it saves you money and it saves us two days of breaking out.
While we are here
What a fortnight in your garden actually looks like.
A 40m² patio is about a week; a drive with a deep sub-base is two. We do not start until we can finish, so you will not get three days and then a gap while we go elsewhere.
A lot, for about three days, and then it goes. Everything comes out through boards, the skip is on the drive not the lawn, and we sweep the road every evening.
We tell them before we start, we do not run a whacker before eight, and we finish at five. It costs us nothing and it is the difference between a job and a dispute.
Five years on the workmanship, in writing. Settlement, lifting, failed pointing — we come back. Natural stone weathering and lichen are the material doing what it does, and are not defects.
A written quotation with the depths in it
- Buff limestone, 22mm
- 40m² · £2,160
- Type 1 sub-base, 150mm
- 9 tonnes · £486
- Laying, jointing, disposal
- £3,240
- Total, inc. VAT
- £7,062