Preventing theft of pavings - Any ideas on theft proofing?

[palladio]

Sadly, our lovely york stone patio was stolen last week and I'm looking for ideas on how to make life difficult to for the b****** next time. It seems a lot of york stone is being pinched in yorkshire right now.

Our location is right next to a main road and making a secure perimeter is not easy so I'm thinking about ways of sticking down the new stone. The old base was sand but I could change it. I'm going to use new riven york stone sawn 600mm wide in random lengths with 50 to 70mm thickness.

One idea was to find a way of bonding the slabs to a concrete base which means slabs would break up when trying to lift them or would have a mess of concrete stuck to them. Another idea was drilling and bolting them down to concrete in situ ground beams with c'sunk head screws and distorting the head.

I can see that won't be easy to level slabs of varying thickness.

If there is any expertise on theft proofing measures I would much appreciate your ideas.

[Tony McC]

It's perfectly possible to bond yorkstone onto a base in such a way that would render them immovable for the rest of time, but you have to be sure that you're not going to change you maind abpout the layout ort the materials, and also that the base to which they are bonded is not going to move, crack or fail in anyway for the forseeable future. You should also bear in mind that, by bonding to a base, you are effectively removing any chance of salvage in later years.

Also, even if flags are bonded in place, the stone bandits won't know this and it's quite likely that they will damage one or more of the flags in a futile attempt to pinch them, befiore they realise they're on a hiding to nothing and decide to nick the ones in the neighbour's garden, instead. This leaves you with the problem of how to replace the firmly and permanently bonded , but damged and spoiled flags they leave behind.

If you choose this option, the flags should be laid on a full bed of SBR enhanched mortar over a concrete base that is at least 75mm thick (100mm for driveways). The joints should be pointed with SBR-enhanced mortar, too.

A less secure but more amenable idea is to bed the flags onto a standard 6:1 wet mortar that is 50mm or so thick. The idea is that, when flags are lifted, they need extensive work to clean off the mortar, but, unlike the SBR stuff, this is actually possible: it takes a lot of time and effort, but it can be done. The fact that the flags require all this additional work to render them saleable means that they are immediately less attractive to the bandits.

Other tricks include chiselling or etching or sawing the postcode into the base of the flags. Lancashire police were experimenting with a water-based 'DNA' that could be painted onto flags and other valuable stone artefacts which could not be seen by the naked eye, but marked them with a code that could be checked under a microscope and UV light, and traced back to the registered owner.

Deterrence is always best. Make the property as secure as possible. Install PIR lights and cctv. Make access awkward and think about establishing or joining a Community/Neighbourhood Watch scheme. No matter what you do, if the bandiots want those flags, they WILL take them.

If I had to choose one method I thought to be most effectivem it would be the full mortar bed. It's cheap, simple, and effective. The bandits want flags they can lift, load into a van and unload at the dealers with no hassle. If they are faced with hours of hard work cleaning off mortar, their natural indolence takes over and they look elsewhere for easier options.

[palladio]

Thanks for ideas Tony. The mortar bedding idea with bonding agent does sound like it would be enough of a hassle to deter all but the most determined. It would also make them very heavy to move with 75mm of compo stuck on them!

I like the idea of the postcoding engraving and uv paint so I will do that as well

[simeonronacrete]

The SBR stuff Tony refers to: Ronafix.

Suggest a bond coat of 1:1 Ronafix : cement brished on to the clean, sound and dampened base (concrete?), and also to the back of the clean and damp slab/stone.

For the mortar; use sharp sand rather than soft as stronger and harder to dislodge. Use a diluted mix of Ronafix and water, suggest 1:1. Add enough of this to the cement and sand to give workability and lay the stone in it. Min. mortar depth 6mm.

Note: Ronafix mortar sticks "like shi* to a blanket" so don't splash on the top of the stone, otherwise you'll have to go shopping again!

And maybe buy yourself a wicked dog to watch over your castle?

Good luck.

p.s. Ronafix can be purchased from WTBurden, Adawall, BBM, Travis, or give us a call on 01279 638700 and we''ll help.