The Brew Cabin

4 years ago, when friends had a patio laid in ""millstone" we were delighted to find such genuine looking flags on the market . We decided to flag our front path / driveway entrance and a small patio area at the back of the house as a trial (and to test our competence) before doing the rest of the driveway and larger patio area. It took some time and squabbling - not to mention cash-but we got there! Passers by stopped to comment on the "good job" we were making and we even passed on the name of the product to two lots of admirers. We were delighted with our efforts and paving, and felt our money had been well spent. As the Stonemarket brochure promised, the flags look their best when gleaming with rain - and we certainly get plenty of that in Preston. The bad news is they now gleam for other reasons. The aggregate is beginning to show through on the edges of a large number of the flags (and those of the friends whose patio inspired us to follow suit) They are clearly fake! We're in a quandry - how do we finish the job? Despite the passing of 3+ years we still have unsightly grey hardcore linking front of house to back! Do we assume we and our friends got a bad batch of flags and quality control were having an off day and buy some more? Or is it likely any future supplies will look genuine only for 4 years so we need to find an alternative? Any thoughts on the subject would be welcome whilst we pen our letter to the company seeking its comments.

Although Millstone are probably one of the top 3 riven copies in the UK, they are still 'concrete' and no matter how well they are manufactured, nor how good the concrete itself is, nor how rich are the dyes, there's nothing you can do (short of sealing them after they are first laid) to stop them weathering and reverting to what they are...concrete.

I've seen it on several 'prestige' jobs where the flags have been down 3-6 years and weathering has resulted in the aggregate becoming exposed and beginning to show through. I'm not sure there's anything Stonemarket/Marshalls can do about it, or whether they'd entertain your complaint, but it's worth the cost of a stamp writing to them.

These high-cost riven copies are now facing an uncertain market. Since they were first introduced onto the market a decade ago, the country has been flooded with cheap, imported riven stone that can compete with these copies in terms of price and it is now debatable whether a concrete copy at around 25 quid per square metre represents good value when you can get genuine stone for around the same price. OK; it's not true 'Yorkstone' and some of it is absolute rubbish, but there's some damned good stone being brought in that only anoraks such as meself would be able to spot as not being genuine 'British' stone.

I think the coming year will be the 'breakpoint' when these 'premium products' will either have to drop their prices in response to the imported stone or offer something special that isn't available in the natural stone (yet).

For the design work I do, I'm now at the stage where I'm suggesting clients would be better off using the quality genuine stone rather than these concrete copies. In 5 years time, the stone flags may well be green with algae, but they'll still be stone and can be cleaned up to look like new again, whereas the concrete copies will more than likely have weathered to look not too dissimilar to the cheap 'budget' concrete copies sold at the DIY sheds.

I'd be very interested to hear what the 'Premium' manufacturers, such as Stonemarket, have to say. I know that applying a quality sealant 6-12 weeks after laying will certainly extend the life of their products, but that's just bumping up the cost even further, and not everyone is keen on the finish that comes with the sealants.

In your case, I think you should take a good hard look at what's on the market. There's a good few natural stone suppliers in and around Preston, so have a shop around, see what sort of prices they''re asking, and weigh up whether you're better off sticking with the devil you know or switching to a ntural stone product.