Laying a patio

[RB02259]

Doing one myself and currently dug up the decorative stones to find an existing sub base. It's not exactly mot type 1 grade but is in some areas and other areas a mix of sand bits of tarmac and small amount of organic matter basically whatever builder wnat3d rid of

My question can I compact this and lay onto it for a goot traffic patio or be risk adverse excavate further and lay graded hardcore?

Cheers

Ryan

[G!zzard1533]

Is it just dirt and stones? If so I’d advise digging down and using type 1 MOT. You’d need to dig down 6 inches from your finished patio height to give you enough of a base. When doing mine I’ll be setting a four inch compacted MOT base, 38mm Indian sandstone slabs with a 22mm cement bed.

[Langy]

I'll bet Fred West could give you some cracking advice on this...if he where still alive

[RBH]

I'll bet Peter Sutcliffe could give you some cracking advise on this...if he where still alive

Or mother and daughter from Brookside - the Jordache family......remember them

[RB02259]

Is it just dirt and stones? If so I’d advise digging down and using type 1 MOT. You’d need to dig down 6 inches from your finished patio height to give you enough of a base. When doing mine I’ll be setting a four inch compacted MOT base, 38mm Indian sandstone slabs with a 22mm cement bed.

Not too much dirt I decided to wack it and go for it and excavated areas of grass which I will use correct mot for

[RB02259]

So tonight i was digging and found very shallow electric and water lines for boiler. I had planned to square area ofg. What yous reckon should i and dig carefilly or fill that part back with grass and use original edging lines?

[G!zzard1533]

Personally I’d fill that back in with grass as you’d need to cover the lines with foam insulation sleeves before you lay the cement over. I’m guessing the patio slab on the second picture is where the services are? If you lay them so you have triangular slabs along the original edge line it wouldn’t look bad at all

[lizzard-t]

So your services are under that patio slab .
How deep is the excavation?
Basically if it's electrical i think it's up to 3.3 KV should be 0.9 of a meter below
20.0 KV> 1.5 meter . should be identified as such . don't go anywhere near that incase the sheeting further on is damaged.
Water lines should be 600 mm deep and protected with soft sand around the pipe.
Gas pipe.on private land 400mm below.
And trenched on all sides.
But there again there's probably lots of places where local by-laws have been dis-reguarded .
But depending on traffic going across the top .
At minimum protect them.identify them
And get some sharp sand to allow for movement.

[RB02259]

Thanka guys I think the water pipe has a reflective wrap insulation on it but no foam

The electric is my main concern my gut is telling me it's armoured cable and 240v supply for boiler but hard to know could b3 main supply for house

Still deciding what to do my wife hates that concrete edging which was main reason for lifting and squaring off but safety first too ofcourse

[G!zzard1533]

As Mr-T said. How deep did you dig down? Could always fill it back up to the level you need it to be then lay your patio over it but you’d need to be careful digging around it. I would have thought it would be armoured as standard so you have a bit of protection there from that. Or you could always dig that out and put a different style of edging in? Plenty of decorative choices out there.

There’s nothing stopping you from laying over the top of it as long as it’s protected

[RB02259]

As Mr-T said. How deep did you dig down? Could always fill it back up to the level you need it to be then lay your patio over it but you’d need to be careful digging around it. I would have thought it would be armoured as standard so you have a bit of protection there from that. Or you could always dig that out and put a different style of edging in? Plenty of decorative choices out there.

There’s nothing stopping you from laying over the top of it as long as it’s protected

Thanks I didn't dig deep 15cm at most I'm northern ireland so not sure if regs are followed as stringently. I'm opting towards what you're saying about replacing edging only as I'm very nervous digging around it even going gently however I'm also worried that cable will come directly under edging at some point and even removing edging with jack hammer could be risky?

[lizzard-t]

That cable is for your consumer unit.
Don't use a jack hammer if it goes anywhere near it you will be looking at that from heaven.
When we used to dig soakaways the first part was assessing what lied underneath.
The second was to dig but use a fork not a spade as that would only Peirce a small amount of the protective seething.
What ever you do use sharp sand to allow for movement around the services .

[G!zzard1533]

Best advise I can give is, if your nervous about the path it takes would be as Mr-T says use a fork to break the ground up then scoop out with hands/spade but scraping along the top not going down to lift it out. And if you have one use a sledge to break the edging up so you can lift it out in smaller pieces.

[RB02259]

Cheers folks ill have a think this weekend but very much thinking of just filling area with grass and breaking up the edging with a hammer

[RB02259]

Update

hired a cat 4 detector in hope it would assist. Didnt work at all didnt eveb beep for a live cable i read you beed the Genny too

anyways decided to fill that area back with grass

remeoved the edging the whole way along then in areanear consumer unit used sl4dge hammer and chisel having dug expliratory hole either side to make sure no cable went through

some pics and now bbq and beer