Block paving

[Jonboy_t]

Hi all. I'm just starting to do my house up - almost 2 years after promising that I would do it, but that's a different story! I've done quite a bit of DIY in the past (couple of my own houses, couple of friends/family's, new kitchens, bathrooms etc), but one thing I have never mastered the art of is block paving. I did my old man's back garden patio in it and within a couple of years, there were noticeable puddles forming in certain areas when it rained, maybe an inch deep at the most, whilst the rest of it had either stayed where it was or risen.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist and the kind of house this is really needs to have a top quality finish to get top-dollar on resale, so don't want it to look like a bodge job. But, I'm also half northern, so don't want to pay someone else to do it!!

My next job is to do up the front garden. It's already half block paved with half grass, enough for one car currently, but I want to block pave the remainder so we'll have 2 to 3 parking spaces and it will fit in with the other houses in the neighbourhood perfectly.

Are there any decent tips that anyone knows on how to get the kind of finish that I'm looking for?

[Toilet Duck]

Jonboy_t said:

Are there any decent tips that anyone knows on how to get the kind of finish that I'm looking for?

This is something I will be doing in a few years. However, my understanding is that it is probably best to stump up and pay a proffessional to do it. For a start, they buy the bricks in such large amounts that they get them for a far better price than joe public for one driveway. Maybe you could save on some of the labour by doing some of the preperation donkey work i.e. digging up the XYZ amount of earth ready for them to just start laying the base? I know a couple of people very DIY handy who did their own drive. They got a deal on some block paving on ebay but had to go to the arse end of the country to collect it. It took them ages to do it, and although they have done a good job, they said that it wasn't worth the bother and in hindsight they should have just paid someone to do it.

I'm not for one minute saying you haven't got the skills to do it, but if you want a really decent finish like it seems, it might be worth paying for it. If you do it yourself and start getting loose blocks or drainage problems down the line, it will do your crust in.

Good luck

[Mojooo]

read pavingexpert.com or better still get his book, it goes through things in detail

block paving is not that hard in theory but getting that perfectly flat (sloping for drainage if needed) finish just right will be difficult.