The Brew Cabin

Hi all,

Here in Dublin, I've been seraching for a suitable sandstone product to lay as a 3.5 diameter circular patio.

I have found a suitable product from a supplier that sources the stone from India. Its called Rivina sandstone which has a slight red tint too it. Its costing me 550 euros but to get it laid will cost more than the stone so I would like to do the job myself. I will lay a subbase and compact it but what should I lay the slabs on? A sand or concrete layer? Also how best should I tackle the job, start in the centre and work out? I guess that as each ring is laid I'd probably need to readjust some of the slabs to get them all fitting nicely. Should I keep the centre slightly higher and have a slope out?

How best to fill in the gaps/pointing? as I go or at the end? What type of pointing finish/colour would suite?

Thanks for any advice

Mike

550 Euros is a bloody good price for a natural stone circle of that size - €55 per m2 - around 37 quid for the Brits! Who's supplying that, if you don't mind revealing your sources? My family in Dublin have been paying almost €45 per m2 for imported sandstone!

Anyway, on to the rest of your questions....

Lay the stone on a 10:1 mix of grit sand with cement, as described on the Patio Paving page. Start laying in the centre, and make sure the centre is at the highest point, so that water is shed to the edges. I like to esatblish the centre stone, then use it as a guide to screed out the rest of the bed before placing the outer rings, in sequence.

With the naturral stone, I prefer to butter the flags as they are laid, then point everything up once a ring is complete and had the joints "evened out". I always prefer a dark coloured mortar with stone flags, and from what you describe as the colour, I'd suggest a dark brown or black mortar would look good.

Be careful with the Indian stone, though: there's some right owld shite on the market here in the UK.

If you have any photos of this Rivina stone, I'd love to see them.

Hi Tony

The retailer is called StoneBroker out in Dalkey, though the stone is being imported from India. To be honest there isnt much choice in dublin. Most places only stock the mint and another colour I cant spell!! Stonebroker had a bigger selection. I cant tell you if its the owld shite you mentioned!!, can one tell? The sample he gave me looked solid and was quite hard to break

Apparently this Rivina stone is new this year, so if I get my hands on a digital camera I'll try to get the picture to you.

Thanks

Mike

I must get out to Dalkey next time I'm in Dublin - not been there for years! Have you a telephone number or full address?

To check the stone, try crushing a corner between your thumb and forefinger - if there's any crumbling at all, be very, very wary.

If you don't have a digicam, you can use normal photos and scan them, or I can give you a snail mail address, if you prefer.

Let me know how you get on. :)

It's near the villiage centre:

Stonebrokers
Olde Quarry Dalkey Co. Dublin
Tel: (01) 2857709
Fax: (01) 2857251

From your description, I think I'm safe, the stone felt very durable, I'll check the sample tonight when I get home.

Cheers

Mike

Hi Tony,

Just bringing this topic back to life :-)

Well 12 months later I've finally got the circle patio delivered! Guess what it is?

Yep a 3m diameter indian mint sandstone circle!!! It's all I could get, but to be fair, it's not as bad as I imagined.

I hope to lay it the week after next. Re-reading your reply and your website, I've a few questions:

1) When you say butt the flags together, would I be putting wet mortor on the edge of the receiving flag? The stone has a fettered? edge so I'd need to point with a wet mix?

2) What sort of fall would I need to drain off excess water.

3) What colour mortar would you recommend for this type of stone? Are you familar with the colour?

Now some more questions, We wanted a 3.5m diameter cicrle, but can only get 3m. So to extend the patio, we have these small standstone tumbles, that are 150mm square and are a depth of about 22mm. so here's my questions;

1) What sort of gap should be left between them? When you look at cobble blocks or real bricks the gaps are quite large. Is it really up to my taste?

2) How to fill the joints? Wet if I go for wide joints and dry for the narrow joints. How would a dry coloured mix match with the wet mix used on the larger circle flags?

I had planned to use 2 rings of these tumbles, but the other half has now complicated things. She's suggested that I lay the outer rings of tumbles and then try throwings in some stones on the inner rings for "affect". And it if doesnt work I can always lay the inner ring!!! Any opinions on how this might look?

Thanks

Mick

Only last week I was thinking I hadn't heard how you were getting on with all this, Mick.

1 - yes, use a stiff, wet mortar to butter the receiving edges (which are "fettled") and then point with the same, as soon as possible afterwards.

2 - Fall 1:60 is usually about right for the riven stone

3 - A dark colour looks best with that Mint flagstone, in my opinion. Mix some black dye with the mortar to get a dark brown or nearly-black shade.

Sandstone cobbles...

1 - I assume you mean setts, rather than cobbles, and, if so, then aim for a 12-15mm joint

2 - You should use a wet mortar as used for the flags. A dry grout mix does not take colour. Here's an excerpt from a forthcoming page...

Cement dyes for use in colouring mortar or concrete need to be mixed with a quantity of water to properly disperse the colourant and to fully activate it. Consequently, adding cement dye to a dry grouting mix is rarely successful, and, on the odd occasion that it does manage to impart a colour to the dry grout, the effect is often patchy and inconsistent.
When a coloured mortar is required we make up a semi-dry mortar, by mixing the sand, cement and dye together and then adding the minimum amount of water to activate the dye and bind together the sands and cements. Mixing such a stiff mortar is not easy and it takes a great deal of effort to ensure the dye is properly dispersed while not making the mortar so wet that it would stain a paved surface. Once it's prepared, the semi-dry mix can be fed into the joints, packed in with the edge of a trowel blade and then tooled to a smooth finish. As long as the paving itself is dry and remains so for 24 hours after pointing, we find that there is little or no surface staining and we get a fully-coloured, properly pointed joint.


When it comes to combining the setts and the flags, I have a sneaky feeling that you'd be able to use the setts between the rings, so you'd get...

Centre stone
-setts-
1st Ring
-setts-
2nd ring
-setts-

...giving you a total diameter or around 4m.

If in doubt, lay it out 'dry' before committing yourself to any mortar. :)

Thanks for the reply Tony,

Well, the area cant really take a 4m diameter circle, it's just too big. It's amazing what a .5m difference makes!! So we'll have to do with the 3.5 meter thats always been our problem ;-)

How thick/wide should the gap between the flags be? is it just dab some mortar on the receiving edge and "squezze" the next flag up to it? Also on the pointing, is it important to use the silver sand or will ordinary sand do? and finally the fettled edge on the flags are quite servere, but I'd imagine that if I pointed to get a flush joint, the width of the pointing would be too much.

We'll try and lay the 3m circle first and then see how these tumbles go. By the way, I wouldnt say they are setts from what you describe on the website. They really are more of a tile, as their depth is no more that an inch and therefore I think they will be hard to work with?

Thanks

Mick

You could just use one or two of the sett rings to give you the overall diameter that suits the garden, Mick. It doesn't have to be 4m - it could be 3,6, if that's a better size.

For the flags, the joints should be 9-15mm in width, with 12mm being "ideal". You can push the flags quite tight-up to each other to prevent the fettled edge causing an overly wide joint - the 12mm ideal refers to the surface appearance, not necessarily the whole depth of the joint, which can be more than or less than 12mm.

Silver sand is best used when trying to create a black mortar, as it colours with less dye than would a red or buff sand, but, if silver sand is hard to source, and building sand will be fine.

If the tumbled stones you have are only an inch thick, then they are tiles, rather than setts. Anything less than 30mm thick is classed as a tile. However, I don't think they'll be any more difficult to work with than the flags you have or genuine setts - I'll bet they're a damn sight easier to cut!

I hope you're taking photies!

Hi Tony,

In a bit of a rush to understand and get everything ready for the morning as I hope to start laying it tomorrow!!

Had a look at the flags again this evening. You know I said they had a servere fettled edge, well I found out that this is the underside of the flags as markings written by the manufacturer wont come off :biggrin: Amateur or what!!!

On the other side, the edge is smooth so thats one less thing to worry about. I trust your expert wisdom regarding the darkish pointing, but the other half isnt a believer!! I'm using simple builders sand and black dye, so is it a case of trial and error with respective to knowing how much dye to add to the dry mix and then how it turns out once it drys from the wet mix? Or will the finish colour look pretty close to the colour of the dry mix?

And finally (hoping you read this in time) I tried getting my hands on the digital camera, but the person was out of work, so you wont see a before picture, but I'll try and get some pictures taken so you see how I'm progressing. The future to be missus says I should take this up as a career, but only if I get paid by the hour :shocked:

Help!!!

Tony, things arent going well at the moment. We've taken the flags out and tried to lay/position them. We are having problems with the first ring (of 4) as the segments are too big on the narrow end. Each ring has 12 flags, but because of the first, the rings are being pushed that bit wider and thus the further out the larger the gaps. We cant get the gaps right and for joints to align on every second rings? I'll have to contact the supplier next week, but we shouldnt have to taper the first rings should we? If we did , would it be easy?

Frustrated Mick :confused:

Update...

Well we didnt lay it in the end :(

On the off chance we rang the manufacturers in Co. Donegal. The rep said that this can happen as the stone is hand cut, so he said he'd call in during the week to inspect the patio. I hope he'll replace it as I cant see us laying it as is. We spent a couple of hours trying to get joints approx 10-15 mm with every second ring staggered and joints aligned, but couldnt.

Even the weather held up so... but sure thats life...

Hopefully next weekend.

Mick

I seem to have missed all the fun while I was away for a couple of days over the weekend - as soon as me back is turned the whole world starts falling apart! ;)

So: what's happened? the inner circle of flags have been cut to a wrong size - is that it? I wonder how that's happened, as they are all usually cut to a template, unless the inner ring of a different circle has been packaged with the outer rings of your circle pack by accident.

It's just as well you tried to dry-lay the circle first - if you'd knocked up the bedding and the jointing mortar, spread it all out and then found out that there was a discrepancy, it would have been more of a catastrophe.

Who's the supplier in Donegal? I have a potential customer in Mayo looking for a local supplier of stone paving.

Update,

Had their "Sales" guy over last night. The company are McMONAGLE STONE, Mountcharles Co Donegal, (074) 9735061.

I suppose its hard to know when they are telling you the truth, but he says this happens as its handcut in india, and if I wanted to change it, I'd be waiting 4+ weeks as there isnt enough of a supply. I've taken that with a pinch of salt ;)

He said if I ignore the first ring and are happy that the other rings fit with the joints aligned etc. I can lay them and then return to the innner ring, with the idea of either cutting the last flag in 1/2 to fit it in or, I could taper the others if I'm a perfectionist!!.

So Tony what ya thing, should I give it a try? I have a couple of samples to try the cutting. What way would you recommend doing the cuts on the sandstone. To be honest, if I stuck my heels in and said I wanted a replacement, I'd imagine it could be after the wedding before it arrives!!!

Thanks for any advice.

Mick

I have to question the claim that it would be 4 weeks before a replacement circle could be found - are they trying to tell you that you are in possession of the only flag circle in the whole of Ireland? They must have other circles, and, in my opinion, they should replace the whole thing, to ensure you get a circle that pieces together perfectly, and not expect you to wait until it's convenient for them.

I also fail to see why you should be required to trim the flags to fit - you bought a bloody circle kit that was supposed to be complete. Imagine buying a car and then being told you had to fit your own wheels because there was a lot of demand for them and the supplier couldn't be arsed!

However, given that your under starter's orders for your nuptials, though, it may be quicker and simpler to try and sort the inner circle for yourself. As you're not skilled with hand cutting tools, all you can do is hire in a decent power saw or big Nangle Grinder, preferably with a diamond blade, (and I'd be expecting McMonagle's to pay for the hire!) and trim the stone as required. Then, using a small hammer, you can 'fettle' the edge, by lightly tapping it to flake off the sawn edge and create a natural hand-tooled look. It's only the top of the edge you need worry about, as the rest will be hidden by the pointing mortar, but, if you had a sawn edge on show, it would stand out like the proverbial sore thumb in contrast to all the other fettled edges.

How does that sound? Possible or not? Will McMonagle's be supplying you with spare stone in case it goes wrong?

By the way - the new page on pointing stone flags has just been uploaded, if you want to take a look. :)