New patio help

[Leedslad]

Hi
I'm new to this paving and I have decided to have a go at doing my own patio. The area is 40m2 and it currently has a mixture of old council flags and pebbles. The original plan was to dig out the garden and lay 80mm of type 1 followed by 50mm sharp sand and then lay slabs on top with fall for drainage. However the existing flags that look to have been down over 20 years are pretty level, couple of cm here and there in places and a couple of flags are cracked, however think this isn't due to movement. I investigated the material under the flags and it looked like well compacted soil and sand, about 50mm down I believe I found evidence of hardcore but couldn't be sure. This site suggests that hard core for a patio isn't always needed and I would prefer not to import 7 tonnes of the stuff and digging down for it if I could simply relevel existing add the sand and lay the slabs. Could anyone offer any advice? Also can you pave against log edging and fence or does it have to be concrete edging?

[lutonlagerlout]

welcome leedslad to the world of pain!
just because your patio was laid on sand ,doesn't make it right
read
this,,and
this
and finally this
there is no easy way to make a silk purse out of a sows ear bar hard graft and some financial input
read this for a good example of DIY patio
work
cheers LLL

[Leedslad]

hi

thanks for the advice however I have read most of that already. I am going to lift the existing paving slabs out and dispose and I am going to add a 50mm layer of sharp sand as a bedding layer. The point as was trying to make is that as the existing slabs have been down for years and have not shown much evidence of slippage or movement and therefore was wanting to remove the need for digging out further to relay a 50mm subase of type 1. The advice on this site seems to advocate this for a non vehicular loaded patio, which is what mine will be, I will also be using 450 x 450 slabs.

[cookiewales]

hi

thanks for the advice however I have read most of that already. I am going to lift the existing paving slabs out and dispose and I am going to add a 50mm layer of sharp sand as a bedding layer. The point as was trying to make is that as the existing slabs have been down for years and have not shown much evidence of slippage or movement and therefore was wanting to remove the need for digging out further to relay a 50mm subase of type 1. The advice on this site seems to advocate this for a non vehicular loaded patio, which is what mine will be, I will also be using 450 x 450 slabs.

hi you cant lay 450x450 on sand unless mixed with cement it will fail cheers cookie :;):

[Leedslad]

cheers, ill remember to mix it with cement. im quite nervous as i have not done this before, however I think I can do it thanks to some of the excellent resource on this site.

im gonna plumb for the levelling of existing sub grade, adding the sand/cement bedding and then laying the slabs, i actually think it would be overkill to add the type 1 sub base as i think its quite solid under the slabs, no evidence of failing with current slabs and i think there is some form of sub base down there.