Patio Installation

A properly laid, well-drained outdoor surface for everyday garden use

A patio needs the same groundwork attention as a driveway — sub-base, falls, correctly laid and jointed paving — but is designed around pedestrian rather than vehicle loading, opening up a wider range of paving materials and layouts for everyday garden use.

Patio construction follows the same core sequence as driveway paving — excavation, a compacted sub-base sized appropriately for pedestrian rather than vehicle loading, correct falls set away from the house to shed rainwater properly, and then the chosen paving laid on a bedding layer with jointed or pointed finishes between slabs. Because a patio doesn't need to carry vehicle weight, material choice opens up considerably: porcelain paving, Indian sandstone, concrete flags and natural stone are all common options, each offering a different balance of appearance, slip resistance and maintenance. Falls away from the house are a detail that's easy to overlook but genuinely important — a patio that slopes even slightly toward the property risks directing rainwater against the wall and, over time, toward the damp-proof course, so getting this right at the groundwork stage matters as much as the paving finish itself. Patios are frequently laid alongside other garden work — raised beds, steps between level changes, or as the hard landscaping connecting a house to the rest of the garden — so the level and drainage design usually needs to account for how the patio ties into the wider garden layout, not just the paved area in isolation.