The Brew Cabin

Hi Tony,

As they say wish'd I had found this site earlier.

Just laid a patio using pre-cut 2.8m circle in Indian Slate, cut a number of extra slates to square the whole thing off.

My idea was to point it off afterwards, big mistake having read the your site.

As far as I can seen I am left with the Dry Sand Jointing method to finish the job off.

I am a little unsure as what sand to use, is it the very fine 'kiln dried' stuff from my local merchants, or is there any 'branded' stuff I should be looking for.

Regards, and many thanks for your efforts, Eddie

Using dry-sand jointing is less than ideal - it will probably get lost over the winter, and it's a bugger for attracting weeds.

Could you not use a dry grout? Just sand and cement with no added water, brushed into the joints and left to sort of harden over time? If you water the joints just before brushing in a dry grout, taking exceptional care not to get the surface of the flags wet, then that often retains sufficient moisture in the joint to initiate hydration and get a better degree of hardening with the grout.

However, if you want to stick with the dry sand jointing, then a proper jointing sand is best.

Just how wide are these joints? You might need to use a stabilising compound and/or lime dust if they are much wider than, say 6mm.

Hi Tony,

Joint sizes are various, my first patio !!, some are 3mm others are 10mm as I had to cut flags to square off the circle.

What I have done thus far is to follow your suggestion and pre water the joints before adding the dry grout.

Then whilst having a 'contemplating coffee' I decided to pour a very small amount of water onto the flags and let it seep into the joints.

This seemed to work in most cases, although the were one or two collapses where I allowed too much water to get in, tomorrow will tell, I still have around 60% to go.

I see that you like to see 'pickies' of work, I will therefore send a couple to your e-mail address as I am not sure how to attach them within the forum.

Regards, Eddie

There's a help file on how to post photies to the Brew Cabin, but, if you're not technically gifted, it's a lot easier to send 'em to me as emauil attachments and let me worry about resolution and image sizes. :)