The Brew Cabin

Need some advice. Just moved into a new property and have just 2 paving slabs outside French doors and turf. Cant afford to have a proper patio done at the moment(have had a few quotes) but need something for my table chairs as the ground is uneven. Could I just dig and level the ground, lay a plastic sheeting(to prevent weeds), have a laying base of sharp sand/dry cement lay the slabs randomly with gaps and infil with gravel. The patio is not going to be raised so would this be ok. Also would I need to do a slope for water drainage.

P.S as it's a new house the ground is literally rock solid.

(Edited by samantha at 1:48 pm on June 23, 2003)

Drop the idea of using a plastic sheet - it's a recipe for disaster. Have a read of the new page I uploaded earlier - FAQ - Do I really need a membrane? for a fuller explanation of why plastic sheets are a no-no.

Apart from that, your plan sounds feasible. There's a recent thread in this forum dealing with widely-spaced flags and gravel-infill. If you use the Search Facility, it will find it for you.

Gradient for drainage is as stated on the site, particularly the Drainage for Pavements page - 1:60 is about right. Bear in mind that there has to be somewhere for the water to drain to.

thanks for the reply which was of help. As for drainage was thinking of digging a trench at end of patio area (plastic sheeting and filling the hole with gravel so it looks like an edging (i.e is it called a french drain or something or other). will this be ok.

Once again thanks for the help
Sam

What's this obsession with plastic sheeting??? Plastic sheeting is imperable - that mean sit doesn't let water pass through, so why would it ever be used for drainage??

Have a read of the Land Drainage pages of the site. They answer your questions.

I read it some where on another gardening site and it said with french drains to dig down to a certain depth and lay some sort of plastic sheeting. This doesn't make sense to me either!!!!

Gonna have another look!!!!!

have been looking on the site about drainage already.
thanks

just double checked on the other site and they say to line it with 'ground sheeting' ???????

Ground sheeting? Either it's not a British/Irish website, or they don't know what the hell they're talking about. Actually, there's a good chance that it's both!

If you want to follow the advice of some other website, so be it, but the advice I give is written by someone who has actually laid tens, possibly hundreds, of kilometres of land drainage in my time, not just read about it in a book.

There is no way on this planet that plastic sheeting (or any other impermeable membrane) would be used around a land drain. 'Ground sheeting' sounds like a North American-ism for what we call a geo-textile, but, if they can't make it clear as to the type of geo-textile that should be used, or even the reason for using a geo-textile in the first place, then I wouldn't be wasting me time following their 'advice'.

gardenadvice.co.uk!!!

Well, I hope their gardening advice is better than their construction advice!

Land drainage is quite a specialised construction task and is not the sort of project that would be undertaken by your average gardener. This harks back to my firmly held belief that folk should stick to their own trade and not try to bluff their way through a subject that is beyond their experience.

Let the gardeners look after soft-landscaping and leave the hard-landscaping, which includes drainage, to the construction industry!