First timer patio project - input welcome!

[lemoncurd1702]

Ideally you would have whacked before the rain. Give it a try though, if it starts going mushy best leave till it drys out.

[Mobius]

hmm, looks like it's drying out for the afternoon...

I went for the 16.5KN plate, as it was on half price hire at HSS. Any idea roughly how long 20m2 will take to do. I'd like to leave it as late as possible to start to allow to dry a bit and still get it back to the shop for 5pm if possible?

[lemoncurd1702]

I know it's a bit late now, hope you got the wacker back on time.
How many passes with the wacker did you do?

[Mobius]

Yeah, got it back in time. Did loads of passes, more than I can remember to be honest! Felt a bit sorry for the neighbours trying to have a bbq in their garden as it was pretty noisy.

Level dropped about 25mm. If I put down a 50mm mortar bed, it will be a little thick over the bricks, but should look ok I think.

With hindsight, I would have kept a bag of really fine stuff for filling a couple of low points, and where there were a greater proportion of large stones on the surface.

[lemoncurd1702]

I wouldn't worry to much over the thickness of the bed if you want it a bit thinner over the wall, the 50mm beds do have a tolerance.
Have you built a fall into your base?

[Mobius]

Yeah, getting the fall was made easier by the concrete wall at the house end, the concrete footing under the retaining wall at the far end and the garden wall running down the right hand side, all which I could use for reference. I ran a few lines to double check everything was actually level too.

It's a little steeper than 1:60... well 1:55 to be precise but I wanted to make sure the patio to cleared the retaining wall footing when finished.

All I need to do now is buy some bricks to use for the edging walls down the left and right hand sides. As they are only going to be 2-3 bricks high, does anyone see a problem just with setting the bricks on the same mortar bed, extended out, when I put the slabs down.

Technically speaking a wall should probably be built level and not with the fall, but as it's only for edging I think this should be ok?

[Mobius]

This weekend almost killed me! 9:00 - 8:00 both days, only really stopping for 30mins for lunch. I really could have done with someone mixing the mortar whilst I laid the flags but it generally went well. Only had two "oh b*gger" moments... when I made one load too dry and could not get the flags down without them rocking. The other when I realised the bullnosed tread for the step up is 45mm thick rather than 25mm like all the other slabs and I had to pull up the first two flags I'd laid to put down extra mortar!

Not finished yet... still need to cut the curved flags & lay up to the bedding retaining wall, plus the two half flags and then grout.

A couple of pics..

[mickg]

nice job well done

[lutonlagerlout]

looks excellent from here
LLL

[Mobius]

Thanks - definitely couldn't have done it without all your advice. I think the gapfast spacers definitely helped me keep it tidy.

Will be interesting to see how the curved cuts go this weekend!