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Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 6:21 pm
by Gav P
Hi,
I want to lay a patio area in front of our garage using Pavestone "Old England" Slate. Apparently this is suitable for driveways, as, although we won't be driving over it, we need it to be strong enough if the next owner wants to.
The stone comes in very small slabs with tumbled edges, 300x200, 200 x 200 and 200 x 100, and supposedly 50mm thick with no variance. HOWEVER, the sample I've got is actually 40mm thick!
Would be very interested to hear your ideas for the bedding of these slabs. Can sand be used with tumbled edges/potential variance in thickness.
Cheers,
Gav
Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 8:49 pm
by Rich H
Just did my first job with Pavestone products. Without doubt the most uneven, mis-sized and multi-coloured sandstone I have ever used. The 2x1's and 1x1's ranged from 290 to 310. Threw their pattern away after the first ten slabs and just had to make it fit. Of four crates, we had 4 slabs with 30mm holes cut in them! The circle kit, which I had to drive to Kings Langley to get, had a segment missing which I then had to 'make'. The finished job looks nice and the client is happy, but I won't use them again for a while.
And, they have the most poncy, annoying yet useless website I've yet endured. As for advising people to lay slabs on 5 dollops of wet muck.....grrrrrr
Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 10:14 pm
by Gav P
Thanks Rich. Seems like I should be pretty cautious about their product - i know exactly what you mean about the website!
Do you know of any other slate that's suitable for a car going over it? Presumably it has to be pretty thick?
What would you bed onto if the thicknesses aren't consistent? Obviously not 5 dollops...!
Gav
Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 10:15 pm
by lutonlagerlout
full bed of 100mm concrete over 100 mm wacked type 1
cheers LLL
Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 1:50 pm
by Tony McC
Calling that slate "Olde England" should get Mr Fowler and the Pavestone crew sent to Van Dieman's land. The nearest it's been to "Old England" is when they unloaded it at Felixstowe docks.
Rich H mentions the poor advice on bedding flagstones, which, when considered with the geographical misdirection mentioned above, should see the Pavestonians lashed to the mast for the duration of the voyage to Van Dieman's land, but also look at the so-called "random pattern" - random my arse! It's all bloody repeating rectangles. And I've said it before: you can't have a 'random pattern'. A layout is either random or it's a pattern, it can't possibly be both!
Anyway - genuine laying advice. These flags need to be laid on a FULL BED of mortar over a concrete base, or directly onto a FULL BED of concrete. Spot bedding is effing useless for patios: on driveways it's a guarantee of failure.
Jointing needs to be mortar or polymeric full depth pointing. You can't sand-fill the joints of riven-edged flags (well, you can but it's a stupid thing to do) as they rely on the jointing to 'fasten' them in place.