I have just found this website recently and can't believe how much useful information there is.
I hope some of you may be able to give me some advice on a project that my wife and I are about to start soon.
We want to build a new patio in our back garden that will be approx. 50m².
We are trying to get a Mediterranean theme going so we have already had some small walls built which have been rendered, the walls will be painted probably white or cream so we thought Bradstone's mellow terracotta tiles in the diamond pattern would be perfect to complete the Mediterranean look.
It has been nigh on impossible to find a decent display of this product in our area (North East) so we are relying on the brochure/website pictures as our guide. I know this is not advised but all we can get our hands on or see are small samples, having said that the samples do look and feel as good as we'd hoped.
Can I ask your overall opinions on this product, good points as well as bad ones please? I have asked several local landscapers who have looked at the project but none of them have ever laid this product before and some of them were trying to steer us away from using it, do they have good reason to or is it just because of unfamiliarity?
I would also be very grateful for your opinions on the correct way to lay this type of flag, again I seem to be getting conflicting opinions, some guys are saying it must be laid on a concrete base like a floor tile and others are saying it should be a standard sand and cement screed base?
Any advice would be welcome as my head is just about battered with conflicting opinions
Hi Mickg, thank you for the reply, I had looked at that video before.
It was the conflicting views and opinions from a few landscapers who have looked at the project that confused me?
It does make more sense to lay them as you describe (as tiles), even though they are relatively thick (30mm).
Thank you also for the tip about falls and drainage, we have decided to fit a linear drain the full width of the patio area and as you say I will make sure the falls of the patio and the drain are sufficient.
even though they are called tiles 30mm is not what is normally classed as a tile thickness, plus they are cast concrete so you may see a variation in the depth of a few millimetres - tiles are generally consistent in depth so you can use a tile adhesive bed
we lay most products on a sand and cement screed, that is mix and lay the sand and cement, lightly compact then screed off to the correct level and fall and to bed the product directly onto this screed using spacers between each paving flag
you need to know what you are doing to use this method but it gets over any problems you may encounter with different depths
the alternative way is as luton has already advised above
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The Mediterranean stuff does look ok-ish when first laid (well, a few weeks after first being laid, when the inevitable construction crud has weathered away) but after a couple of years the richness of the dye-based colouring starts to fade and becaomes quite wishy-washy. This happens with *all* the ornagey/terracotta-coloured concrete products regardless of manufacturer, so it's not just Bradstone.
I know of several jobs where the client has used bi-annual dousing with colour enhancer or a sealant to maintain the colour, but the almost inevitable sheen which comes with such treatments always looks wrong to my eye. Terracotta is not shiny, not even a little bit!
Obviously, if you buy real terracotta, there's no such problem, but some of the terracotta products being siold as paving materiuals at the moment are not manufactured with the British/Irish climate in mind and they tend not to fare well in out wet winters. Worse: some of them are not even frost proof, so caution is required.
If you stick with the concrete copy option (and many do) then give serious consideration to using a matt/low sheen sealant, otherwise you *will* lose the colour over 2-3 years.
Annoyingly, there used to be a great display of the Bradstone Mediterranean stuff at EJ Stone in Stockton but it's been closed for some time now and I can't think of anywhere else in the NE of Enngland that has a relevant display. Have you contacted the very nice people at Bradstone to ask if they know of a local display?
Hi Tony, many thanks for replying to my post. I do take your point about sealing, in fact my wife and I were only discussing it a few days ago.
Mind you we mentioned it as a precaution against spillages etc. not to help reducing fading as you do
It's a shame about that display in Stockton being closed as it's not too far from where we live
I'm pretty sure I have contacted Bradstone before but admittedly that was a year or so ago, you never know they might have some on display somewhere now, certainly worth a phone call.
Just a quick update on this project, we are getting on well with our preparation and have had most of our materials delivered over the last few days.
The terracotta tiles were delivered yesterday but they are all from different batches, some of them do look a completely different shade/colour.
I would have thought a matching batch number was quite important especially with a "man made" concrete product as there could be large variations in colour/texture etc.?
When I contacted Bradstone a week or two ago about ordering this product they assured me that when one of their agents places an order they would make sure that the product would come from the same batch number!
The tiles alone cost £2500.00, am I being unreasonable to expect them to be from the same batch, is this something you guys have do deal with regularly or do you think I have just been given the left overs from several other projects?
I am gutted because we were going to take advantage of this weekends nice weather
I would be very grateful for your opinions and what would you do in this situation?
Did the delivery come direct from Bradstone or was it delivered from the builders merchant.
Sometimes with the merchant - if it's a large group and they have a few depots in a region - will make the order from stock kept at different yards.
I have this problem now and then but it's not so much the colour issue, but the fact that some of the stock has been sat in the yard for a few years and looks shite.
John the gaffer did warn you about concrete products
if I were spending that sort of money I think I may have just bitten the bullet and gone for real terracotta
and yes it is an everyday occurrence for supplier to send out any old crap they can get away with
Thanks for the replies guys, sorry for not getting back to you sooner but things have taken another twist since my last post!
When I later took the plastic covers off had a closer look at all of the pallets of tiles there were far more pressing issues than non matching batch numbers!
They were in a pretty sorry state to be honest with you, one of the pallets could be best described as scrap, completely unusable.
There were several other issues which I won't bore you with but the main one that concerned me was the durability of the tiles.
I didn't inspect every single tile but I looked at loads of them and they all had marks on the surface where they had been rubbing together, I'm guessing during transit.
I'm not blaming the transport company as they have to be delivered on a truck but I think it's an issue for Bradstone to rectify.
They need to try and protect the upper face of the tiles during transit because when they rub together it permanently marks them!
We have rejected the tiles because of this lack of durability and are probably going to exchange them for Indian sandstone, we hope that's a bit tougher?
The company we ordered from have been very apologetic and even offered us our money back but I need the job finished so we will pick something else.
I think the delivery was from Bradstone lemoncurd but I must confess to not asking, it does look like some of them are several years old and I concur they look shite!
So yes LLL you are right the gaffer did warn me but we really had our hearts set on terracotta and we picked that concrete product because everyone told us that real terracotta is not suitable for the U.K. as it isn't frost proof?
For that price or even a few hundred less you could get real nice terracotta-ish coloured clay pavers perhaps in a herringbone or basket weave pattern. Not only will they be much easier to lay and look like real matt clay but in the long term their colour will not fade and they are all round a much better product.
