The Brew Cabin

Hi

I'm building a patio next to my house and so far I've put in the sub-base layer and I've allowed for a 1:60 fall off (a figure that I found in a DIY book before I found this site). Anyway I have a couple of questions.

The sub-base layer didn't compress as much as I expected and it looks like the top of my flags will be about 130-140 mm below the damp course. Is this enough, I know the advice is to be about 150mm. Will 130mm do any damage and is a surveyor likely to notice this? I could make my bedding layer a little thinner to bring it down a bit, is this a sensible approach. Alternatively I could choose not to flag right up to the house and just leave the subbased exposed with maybe some gravel on top. It would be very difficult to lower the subbase further as my garden slopes towards the house and the other end of the patio will already be several inches below the lawn and I don't think it would be sensible to make the fall-off less than 1:60.

My second question is when it comes to laying the flags up to the house do a just abutt them to the wall or do I butter the wall first and when they are laid do I point the gap between the flags and the wall?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

cheers Tom

If you can get 130-140mm between the top of the paving and the dpc, that will be fine - don't lose any sleep over it! Although 150mm is always quoted as the minimum, for a project such as yours, no-one is going to complain about 10-20mm difference, and it's highly unlikely to be detrimental to the house itself, given that you have adequate fall away from the walls.

For your second point, I like to butter the wall and then place the flag as that gives a more certain joint than laying the flag 'dry' and then trying to poke in the pointing mortar to fill the joint.