Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 10:55 am
LLL - many thanks for the compliments. I'm quite pleased with the job so far - first time at laying sandstone. Just me and the wife (both in our sixties). You guys certainly earn your money doing this every day.
The path down the side of the house was overlaid (about half width) on the existing path bedding which was sound as a pound - about 100mm thick on top of hardcore. It wasn't concrete but looked like 8:1 or 10:1 sand/cement. Fortunately, the level just enabled me to achieve two courses below dpc which decreased a bit when it widened out.
The existing main patio area was also laid on a 100mm sand/cement bed but on top of 150-200mm of sharp sand!! Because of the potential of breaching the dpc, the wife and I removed all this by hand using an electric breaker, smashing up the bedding into small lumps, mixing it with the sand to full depth and then compacting with a wacker in two layers. What a job that was - nearly 20m2. Some of the area that looks like concrete is probably my squaring off of the hardcore at the edges with a sand/cement mix a couple of days before laying the flags. Still got to prepare the perimter base to lay the setts.
The path down the side of the house was overlaid (about half width) on the existing path bedding which was sound as a pound - about 100mm thick on top of hardcore. It wasn't concrete but looked like 8:1 or 10:1 sand/cement. Fortunately, the level just enabled me to achieve two courses below dpc which decreased a bit when it widened out.
The existing main patio area was also laid on a 100mm sand/cement bed but on top of 150-200mm of sharp sand!! Because of the potential of breaching the dpc, the wife and I removed all this by hand using an electric breaker, smashing up the bedding into small lumps, mixing it with the sand to full depth and then compacting with a wacker in two layers. What a job that was - nearly 20m2. Some of the area that looks like concrete is probably my squaring off of the hardcore at the edges with a sand/cement mix a couple of days before laying the flags. Still got to prepare the perimter base to lay the setts.
