Like the other Scot in Texas, in the archives, I'm an expat. Lithuania has very cold winters and hot summers. I want to build a raised patio using natural undressed stone. Due to the freezing and thawing it seems I need a pretty strong concrete found - local "experts" recommend 1.5 metres but as I'd have to dig along a house wall I'm not that keen on that. Would you recommend the 10/1 base or what? Basically it will be rough stone mortared in with partially dressed stone for the walking area. The size is about 3m by 6m and the soil is not clay with quite a high water content in spring and summer but frozen in winter and dry in summer. Any help would be greatly appreciated as they think foreigners can't do anything here.
Great web site. Seems to be the only practical one I've found.
Building a boulder patio
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Tony McC
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I know next to nuffin about Lithuania, other than it's next to Russia, so I assume the climate is similar. Using a 10:1 bed will give no protection against frost heave - the simplest option would be to divide the patio into three bays of 3x2m, use 300mm of a strong concrete (1:2:4 or stronger) as a bed and try to lay that over at least 150mm of good quality crushed rock. Hopefully, by creating such relatively small, independent slabs, any freeze/thaw will move the entire, individual slabs rather than cause them to crack. You may find there's a problem each spring with a level difference between adjacent slabs, but, hopefully, it won't be too bad and it has to be easier than digging down to a level beneath that of frost penetration.
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