The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Mon Nov 13, 2006 4:10 pm**

Hi all,

I'm about to construct a patio from reclaimed house bricks for a friend and had initial thoughts on sub layers and edges etc, however I'd be grateful for any advice/chortles on whether these specs will work...

Bricks bedded to concrete slab with mortar and sand/cement filled gaps
50mm concrete slab
75mm compacted h/core sub-base

Edged by 1/2 bats with bonded shoulders on same sub layers as above but lowest third of frogs bonded to central concrete slab.

I know the sub bases aren't up to depth compared with the info on the main site, but given the bricks will be bonded - is it sufficient?
I'm also a little unsure whether I should incorporate drainage channels in the concrete sub base?
Overall size is around 12sqm.

Ta very much.

Posted: **Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:16 pm**

are the bricks frost proof???
i did a step for my mum in old bricks about 10 yr ago and it has totaly disintigrated now
50mm concrete base is almost worthless,cant you bed the bricks onto 75 mm of lean mix ,then point them in after,
or even butter them as you go, but bed them into l/mix rather than mortar
cheers LLL :;):

Posted: **Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:08 pm**

Thanks for the reply LLL,

Oh dear... I'd didn't consider frost! - erm, no they're probably not

however in mitigation - it's not my decision.
There's a choice of old bricks or old bricks to make the patio out of... I'm just doing the graft for a beer or two

I could dig a deeper hole and up the concrete to 75mm?
To be honest, I'd looked in DIY books and seen roughly 2" depths for garden paths and thought that'll be enough - but now?
I know the hardcore's cheap but as I'm not ordering/buying the rest of the materials - I didn't want to 'overdo the budget' - if there is one.
The main slab of concrete's coming out of a truck so guess it should be possible to bed the bricks into the slab. Any top tips on when to bed them... so I'm not waving goodbye to each one as it slowly sinks?

As you've probably guessed - I don't do this for a living, but I'm not a complete DIY amateur - just enough knowledge to be dangerous!! :laugh:

Posted: **Thu Nov 16, 2006 5:09 pm**

you want to be using leanmix this is 12:1 concrete that is very dry,basically you spread it about 100mm thick then using a level,line or whatever you tap your bricks down with a rubber mallet,leave for a day or two then point in
it might help to butter the bricks as you go
hope this helps
LLL

The Brew Cabin

Reclaimed brick patio sub layers