Sawn sandstone - Is it pourous

[waltzer]

Hi All
Im about to lay 40 sq meters of Sawn sandstone, for my patio
the stone is 900x600 25mm thick sawn on all sides and edges.
Im a little worried if the sandstone is porous, and would soak up from underneath whatever it was laid on. what is the best bed for sandstone to sit on, and should I seal it first before laying, just dont want stains coming through after a year or so.
thanks in advance.

[lutonlagerlout]

all on the main site
if you lay on a sand/cement bed it wont suck it up
LLL

[London Stone Paving]

You ever tried sealing the bottoms lll?

[haggistini]

not worth the effort IMO

[lutonlagerlout]

no m8,i have never had any problems with injun stone,apart from the sizes occasionally so i will stick to my normal routine
LLL

[TazMan]

Seal undernearh, sides and top BEFORE laying. I used 2 coats of Lithofin MN Stain Stop.
This will protect it from cement/mortar stains.

[lutonlagerlout]

Seal undernearh, sides and top BEFORE laying. I used 2 coats of Lithofin MN Stain Stop.
This will protect it from cement/mortar stains.

? hows that then taz man?
you dont want any cement /mortar stains in the first place
and i wouldnt seal the underside of a flag
you want it to adhere to the bedding
LLL

[London Stone Paving]

Raised an interesting point there lll.

Do you think that sealing the underside will have an effect on the adhesion between slab and bedding layer? By rights it should do because 2 coats of lithofin stain stop will stop the water getting through, no doubt.

Just got back from a week in India. Its always interesting. Will post blog and pictures tonight or tomorrow

Steve

[rab1]

just back from India, from what i hear you`ll be on the toilet for a week as well.

[London Stone Paving]

I've never suffered from the Delhi belly Rab. I am always very well looked after and eat at the right places. The problem is overfeeding, you get taken out for meals and food is literally thrown at you. The worst thing you can do is to finish your plate off because it will be instantly filled up again.

You end up walking around bloated like the michelin man. I do like a curry but you can only take so much of the spice. By the end of the week I was craving some bland food. First meal back was a cheese pizza!

[Suggers]

Cheese pizza ? - can't think of anything I'd miss less....
Did 3mths in middle east - missed - bacon sarnie, roast beef & yorkshires, & the local tandoori :p
Looking forward to your blog/report.

ps - and welcome home...
pps - personally I now think this whole sealing thing, is a complete waste of time & money. You end up on some expensive merry-go-round of strip & re-seal.

[London Stone Paving]

I know what your saying about the sealing thing suggers. It does add an extra layer to a job which people could do without. Not just money but in the time it takes, especially as you need dry weather to seal (not everyone has indoor facilities). I've known before people have had to delay jobs while waiting to seal paving.

The majority of stone doesn't need to be sealed. Of all the stones we supply we only recommend that two of them are sealed. Otherwise some people decide that they want to enhance the colour and seal for that purpose only.

I'm not a massive fan of cheese pizza but after a week of nothing but spice it just hit the spot.

[lutonlagerlout]

am i being thick here?
dont all pizzas have cheese on them?
LLL

[London Stone Paving]

All this talk of cheeze pizza is making me feel like eating a cheeze pizza

[Tony McC]

It's too early for pizza, so to get back to the original point, I couldn't ever advocate sealing the underside of any paving beacuse, as other have said, it will compromise adhesion to the bed. However, you can use a bond bridge which does limit wicking while simultaneously improving adhesion.

Back to the OP's question: all sandstone is porous, but some is more porous than others, and much of the cheaper imported sandstone is very porous compared to most of out native sandstone used for paving, which is why we see it going green with algae so quickly. From my experience, Fossil Mint is the worst of the lot - I've got bathroom sponges that aren't as porous as some of that stuff!