Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2019 11:01 am
Hi everyone!
First of all a massive thank you to Tony and everyone who contributes to this site. I've never seen such a resource that is completely free and so detailed.
Armed with all this info I am making a stab at paving my back yard, so far I have dug out the clay soil, put in about 150mm of sub base, worked really hard getting all the levels and compaction spot on and so far it's been going really well.
To finish off I am laying 400x400 Tobermore Standard Flags which has been a steep learning curve from getting the mix consistency right (6:1 sharp sand, moist mix) to getting the bed right all before the mortar has went off in the wheelbarrow in 25° heat. Not a good time to learn I guess!
So, as a result I have had some excellent results but some not so excellent and have had to bin some mortar as it became unusable due to the length of time I spent fannying about trying to get the flags level.
Then I noticed that some of the flags were loose and rocking. That was down to me not filling the corners of the bed fully or filling in finger holes in the bed. I've followed the advice on the site and have lifted the loose flags and installed new bedding.
Subsequently, I now have about two coal sacks full of a sandy, crumbly bedding mix. I was just going to take this to the dump but I read an earlier post about seiveing sand and using it so I just thought I'd ask the question as to weather it could be used again if the lumps were broken up and ran through a sieve? It's probably a stupid question as my gut is saying it's scrap but sometimes you just never know and I'm sure the answer I get will be the right one as you are the folks doing this day in day out and have seen the lot.
One last question is can I add more water to a mix that is on the verges of becoming unworkable, stiff, crumbly or is it best just to scrap it and use fresh mortar?
Making mistakes is all part of the learning curve and I've thankfully improved my mixing and bed making considerably (with the help of a half flag with a threaded bar bolted and bent into a handle as a means on checking the bed height before setting the flag).
First of all a massive thank you to Tony and everyone who contributes to this site. I've never seen such a resource that is completely free and so detailed.
Armed with all this info I am making a stab at paving my back yard, so far I have dug out the clay soil, put in about 150mm of sub base, worked really hard getting all the levels and compaction spot on and so far it's been going really well.
To finish off I am laying 400x400 Tobermore Standard Flags which has been a steep learning curve from getting the mix consistency right (6:1 sharp sand, moist mix) to getting the bed right all before the mortar has went off in the wheelbarrow in 25° heat. Not a good time to learn I guess!
So, as a result I have had some excellent results but some not so excellent and have had to bin some mortar as it became unusable due to the length of time I spent fannying about trying to get the flags level.
Then I noticed that some of the flags were loose and rocking. That was down to me not filling the corners of the bed fully or filling in finger holes in the bed. I've followed the advice on the site and have lifted the loose flags and installed new bedding.
Subsequently, I now have about two coal sacks full of a sandy, crumbly bedding mix. I was just going to take this to the dump but I read an earlier post about seiveing sand and using it so I just thought I'd ask the question as to weather it could be used again if the lumps were broken up and ran through a sieve? It's probably a stupid question as my gut is saying it's scrap but sometimes you just never know and I'm sure the answer I get will be the right one as you are the folks doing this day in day out and have seen the lot.
One last question is can I add more water to a mix that is on the verges of becoming unworkable, stiff, crumbly or is it best just to scrap it and use fresh mortar?
Making mistakes is all part of the learning curve and I've thankfully improved my mixing and bed making considerably (with the help of a half flag with a threaded bar bolted and bent into a handle as a means on checking the bed height before setting the flag).