The Brew Cabin

Hi Tony et al,

It's been several months (alright a year) since I bothered this board with my garden patio woes ... but I'm back ... hopefully for a brief while only!

Heres the state of play:

- drainage sorted (a relief to all concerned :P)
- sub base layed, levelled and compacted
- weed control fabric layed
- bedding layer of sharp sand layed and levelled (ish)

My problem now is that I want to lay my slabs (Bradstone Wetherdales) with a gap of approx 5-10cm all round for some decorative chippings.

But, I feel that I may have been too hasty in laying the bedding layer as I did not consider mixing in 10:1 ratio of concrete.

Please advise on these follwing options :

1. take up all the sand again (boo hiss) and mix in with concrete and relay. Time consuming and will not go down well with the wife (patio was promised to her for last summer !)

2. pick up approx 15 bags of B&Q Slab fix and spread that over the sand and dry lay on top. Is this stuff any good?

3. work on a bit of the patio at a time - take up a bit of sand and mix in with concrete, relay and drop the slab on that - i.e. as per option 1 but done with the laying of the slab in the same process.

4. some other genius idea from you experts

As always, all advice is greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Rash.

Hi Rash,

good to see you back - your patio endeavours have entered the annals of paving history! ;)

Option 3 is the best solution. Buy a bag or three of cement (not Slabfix or Postmix or any of those other over-priced products) and sprinkle it onto the area to be paved in the following hour or two. Stir it in with a rake or the back of the spade, and that will do.

If your existing sand bed is around 50mm thick, then a 5mm covering of cement will be plenty - or approximately a spadeful per square metre. :)

I'd work on a couple of metres at a time, and see how you get on. If you spread and stir an area larger than you can actually complete, don't fret. As long as you don't compact it solid, it should break up pretty easily the next day and can be mixed in with some fresh sand and cement.

Let us know how you get on.