Advice - how to link raised patio to lawn

[davebmk]

I'll enclose a few photos showing the patio area. I laid the patio and retaining wall many years ago; I've rejointed it, and as it looks a bit better now I wanted to replace the crappy job I did way back when I had white chippings between lawn and patio wall. I'm still not sure whether to use chippings or paving this time, but my main concern is to do the job right. We're on clay, next to the local municipal golf course, not the worst clay; garden/lawn slopes away from house and patio, and patio has slight incline that way too. The bottom only gets lying water after very heavy, consistent rain. Years ago, when I was stronger and more active - now 73! - I put in soakaways and drainage away from garage roof, but as I've read Tony somewhere, if you have nowhere to drain to then what's the point?

The patio is some 30 yards wide; the lawn the same length. I'm thinking of a slightly wider channel, maybe 20cm, for chipping, if I found really nice paving slabs, definitely wider. Could someone advise what to underlay any chippings with in order to allow rainwater to eventually drain away and dirt brushed off patio to also drop away, leaving chippings clean. I get no problem with cleanliness in the area in the photo laid with pea gravel, but it's quite large. If I went with some sort of paving would I be right in laying it in a bed of cement? My daughter says why not put the whole thing back to grass? If I did that could I leave the channel I've got, fill with rubble and smaller stuff and lay just a thinnish layer of soil under turf to use up rubble I've got? Hope the photos come through!



[img]http://IMG_0204.JPG[/img][img]http://IMG_0207.JPG[/img]

[Tony McC]

Dave,

as you can probably see, your images have not appeared - not sure whether it's a code issue or a server problem.

If you can't get them to load, send to me and I'll get them uploaded for you.....

[davebmk]

Apologies Tony,

I'll try again with the photos and if this doesn't work out, will pm them to you. Thanks for bearing with me!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/50219517@N05/shares/267s5X

https://www.flickr.com/photos/50219517@N05/shares/31P9sT

https://www.flickr.com/photos/50219517@N05/shares/8E6081

[davebmk]

I should stress that LolaNewleaf appears to be my daughter's username on Flickr, definitely nothing to do with me! She says I'd have to use a photo-sharing website to post photos, and she's used an old one she's signed up to?

[Tony McC]

Apologies for being late to this - had all sorts of health issues with angina during the heatwave and now an arthritic knee that is driving me mad with pain.


If you want to pursue the gravels urface dressing option, I'd suggest diugging a trench roughly 150-200mm dep, line with a permeable geo-textile, places 100-150mm of either clean A10 pipe bedding gravel, clean-ish 20mm gravel, or DTp1, wrap over the geotextile and then dress the surface with your selected gravel. This will give a you a free draining 'channel' that should serve well.

For the paving option, given the narrow width, I;d dig down until clear of the topsoil layer, and then knock-up a 10:1 mortar (6:3:1 concrete) and use that to both backfill the trench and as a laying course/bed for the chosen paving.