How

[DrDuncan]

There is a rather handy spreadsheet to download for calculating the cost of laying a basic patio.

It includes labour cost ofr excavating the site and laying the paving.

What is the average TIME per cubic meter for excavating and TIME per square meter for laying, used in the spreadsheet.

(I can then add my own rate!)

[TonyMcC]

It's a bit more complicated than that, Doc. For the excavation, there's a figure for the productivity of machine excavation and a much lower figure for 'hand dig'. Roughly speaking, a simple 1½ tonne mini-digger will excavate around 4-5 cubic metres per hour, but then there's the problem of cart away. For hand-dig, the figure is more like ¾m³ per hour, depending on terrain.

For flag laying, we would expect a good tradesman with one labourer to lay, on average, around 30-40 square metres per day, depending on flag type. On a good day, before I was knackered, I would expect to lay around 70-90m² of 900x600x50/63mm flags each day, and around 40-60m² of the decorative patio flags, but I was a damned hard worker (hence my current disability) running my own business and working to a price (a rate per area laid)

For a keen, reasonably fit diyer, I'd expect a hand-dig and cart away rate of around 3m³ per day (That's roughly ¾ of a skip) and a flag-laying rate of around 10-15m² per day (that's the eqiuivalent of 28-42 flags @ 600x600mm)

Does that help?

[DrDuncan]

Thanks for that!

It's the first time I'm laying a patio on a commercial basis (first customer!!), so I've never had to estimate the time before.

If I work quicker, all the better. If I work slower, then I chalk it up to experience.

I'm so glad I found this site!

[davemckay]

Experience comes with time, learning costs a little bit more.

[TonyMcC]

Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted. :)