The Brew Cabin

Hi, I am relaying a york stone patio thats has been lifted and damaged by tree roots (tree know removed) in small rear garden (no cars or heavy loads). Having read through your website (very useful thanks). I feel I understand the first stages of preperation for doing the job. However there are still a few grey areas for me...

As I understand it:
1st. Sub-base using DTp 1 - 100mm in depth
2nd. Flatten sub-base with vibrating plate compactor (whacker)

3rd. My confusion comes here, my York stone has different depths and uneven edges and I would like to finish up with a flush grouted patio. (grouting ideally would be tough enough to be jet washed down in the future for cleaning purposes).

Questions:
a. Pls could you give advice on what my next layer would be after my sub-base to acheive the results that I have detailed above?

b. Also the best material for me to use for the grouting and best method for laying the stones themselves?

I hope my explanation is clear and my questions understandable many thanks for your help and your website.

Kind regards
Sam Perry

You want to lay the flags on a grit sand / cement mix around 8:1 ratio mix can be wet or dry depending on personal preference, i prefer a wetter mix as i find it goes off quicker and there is more give in the mix but be sure to keep it off the stone surface. All you need to do is select the thickest flags ie; 3 inch or whatever they are, lay one of these first over a 1 inch full bed then when you come to the thin ones ie; 1 inch you will end up with a 3 inch bed and a level surface in other words adjust the bed thickness for each individual flag you should find this fairly easy once you have got used to how much play you have got with your mix.

Hi Alan, many thanks for your reply your information will be very useful.
Cheers Sam

There's a page dealing with laying stone paving and you need to use the individual bed method, as described on the laying flags page.

Unlike Alan, I'm happier using a 10:1 semi-dry mix for the bedding, but each flagger has their own preferred way of working and there's not that much diff between 8:1 and 10:1, or moist-mix and semi-dry mix.

It's not so much of a problem with genuine yorkstone, but some of the imported sandstones are prone to the dreaded 'picture-framing' problem if laid on too wet a bed..

Cheers Tony. Great site.