Manufactured slabs or natural stone?

[Grahamh8]

Could someone advise me on slabs for a path and patio, about 25sq metres in total. Whether to use manufactured slabs ie Bradstone Ashbourne slabs or Indian sandstone. . Which would be the better choice in terms of longevity and ease of upkeep and visual appearance.

[London Stone Paving]

As a natural stone supplier I would always advise the use of natural stone over concrete. IMO it ages better and looks more authentic. Having said that concrete products have come a long way in recent years and there are some good products available. Rather than the choice being stone V concrete the logical route is to decide what stye and colours you like first. Once you have done this you can then look at the options available and narrow things down

Cheers Steve

[Tony McC]

If you are looking at riven effect wet-cast concrete, you need to spend a lot of money to get the genuinely good quality stuff. Perversely, you need to spend more than the cost of natural imported stone to get anything resembling a good copy in wet-cast concrete.

There are advantages to the better quality wet-castproducts : there is less variation in colour or appearance, the sizes are regular and have tighter tolerances, there are often complementary products which offer a greater scope for design. However, at the end of the day, it's still concrete and even the very best stuff will weather to look like concrete in a decade or so.

Oh yes: of course stone weathers too, and when it does, it looks like....errr....stone!

[PavingSuperstore]

Natural stone always cleans up better as well - and you are not gradually depleting the colour and surface texture when you do. It also depends on the budget you have available. You cannot beat natural stone at the lower end of the scale in terms of value for money. When you go up in price you have a much better choice between premium natural stone products and premium manmade paving - for example some of the porcelain/ ceramics are very good and easy to look after.