I am redesigning the back garden of a house I moved in to a few years
ago and as part of the new design I need to move a good sized patio. To
keep things simple I plan to re-use the existing 60 slabs. The problem
is that these slabs are much heavier than the normal purpose made garden
paving slabs I have used in the past.

I have laid a couple of patios over the past 20 years, using slabs up to
450mm square and maybe 30mm thick and I remember it as being hard work,
particularly when it came to positioning and levelling each slab. It was
fine if the slab could be tapped level, first time, but if it needed
relifting and relaying it was really hard on my back.

The slabs I am now about to use are 600mm square and 50mm thick and
therefore weigh about 3 times what the others did. In the past I laid a
full bed of sand over the whole area, then 5 blobs of mortar under each
slab. I'm thinking that this time I should lay, level and mechanically
compact a full sand bed and just lay the slabs straight on to that.

Does anybody have any experience of laying slabs like these? Any advice
or tips to help me survive this job would be very welcome.

TIA

Steve

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 13:36:26 GMT, Steve
wrote:

I am redesigning the back garden of a house I moved in to a few years
ago and as part of the new design I need to move a good sized patio. To
keep things simple I plan to re-use the existing 60 slabs. The problem
is that these slabs are much heavier than the normal purpose made garden
paving slabs I have used in the past.

I have laid a couple of patios over the past 20 years, using slabs up to
450mm square and maybe 30mm thick and I remember it as being hard work,
particularly when it came to positioning and levelling each slab. It was
fine if the slab could be tapped level, first time, but if it needed
relifting and relaying it was really hard on my back.

The slabs I am now about to use are 600mm square and 50mm thick and
therefore weigh about 3 times what the others did. In the past I laid a
full bed of sand over the whole area, then 5 blobs of mortar under each
slab. I'm thinking that this time I should lay, level and mechanically
compact a full sand bed and just lay the slabs straight on to that.

Does anybody have any experience of laying slabs like these? Any advice
or tips to help me survive this job would be very welcome.

TIA

Steve

These are like the slabs the council use on the pavements. They are
very hard work. When I did mine I set myself targets, of like 2 slabs
a day. So each morning I did my 2 slabs, then did some easier stuff
(like crocadile wrestling) for the rest of the day.

Whatever you lay them on, if they ain't right they have to come back
up again..........

Rick

Steve wrote:
I am redesigning the back garden of a house I moved in to a few years
ago and as part of the new design I need to move a good sized patio. To
keep things simple I plan to re-use the existing 60 slabs. The problem
is that these slabs are much heavier than the normal purpose made garden
paving slabs I have used in the past.

I have laid a couple of patios over the past 20 years, using slabs up to
450mm square and maybe 30mm thick and I remember it as being hard work,
particularly when it came to positioning and levelling each slab. It was
fine if the slab could be tapped level, first time, but if it needed
relifting and relaying it was really hard on my back.

The slabs I am now about to use are 600mm square and 50mm thick and
therefore weigh about 3 times what the others did. In the past I laid a
full bed of sand over the whole area, then 5 blobs of mortar under each
slab. I'm thinking that this time I should lay, level and mechanically
compact a full sand bed and just lay the slabs straight on to that.

Does anybody have any experience of laying slabs like these? Any advice
or tips to help me survive this job would be very welcome.

TIA

Steve

Funny you should ask because I laid exactly this type of slab last
weekend and it was blinking hard work. I would suggest you get yourself
a friend into help (there was two of us) because lifting and re-laying
the slabs to get them level on a dry mix is really hard work.

We laid the slabs on a dry mix using a couple of spades a spirit level
and a big rubber mallet.

First use a piece of wood to get the dry mix about level (I'm assuming
you have laid hardcore if you need / want it) and then lay the slab on
it as gently as you can. We found the best way to lower the slab was to
place a foot against one side of the slab to act as a pivot and then
lower the slab. It digs in along the side your foot is on but that's
easy to fix in a minute. Mind your fingers though it's really easy to
trap a finger.

Aim to get the slab a couple of millimetres high on the side opposite
your foot. If that's the case hit it with the mallet until it's level.
This compacts the sand and seats the slab.

Check the slab with a spirit level. If the foot side is a little low
(probably will be) _gently_ lift the edge with the tip of a spade and
use the mallet to compact dry mix under the slab (this is best done with
two people).

One thing to watch out for is getting material trapped between the slabs
(only a problem if you are laying them flush) which forces them apart.
To fix that just run a finger along the edge of the already laid slabs
so that you create a _small_ (5 to 10 mm deep) trench by the slab. The
small amount of spare material falls in that gap and allows the tiles to
be push firmly together.

Final points: Don't try compacting the dry mix - it's a complete dead
loss. You just damage it while you lay the slabs and sets solid anyway
The two slabbed areas I built following the above method hold 5500 litre
water tanks and they've not moved a mm. If I had to do it again I would
probably try blobs of cement.

Rick wrote:
On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 13:36:26 GMT, Steve
wrote:


I am redesigning the back garden of a house I moved in to a few years
ago and as part of the new design I need to move a good sized patio. To
keep things simple I plan to re-use the existing 60 slabs. The problem
is that these slabs are much heavier than the normal purpose made garden
paving slabs I have used in the past.

I have laid a couple of patios over the past 20 years, using slabs up to
450mm square and maybe 30mm thick and I remember it as being hard work,
particularly when it came to positioning and levelling each slab. It was
fine if the slab could be tapped level, first time, but if it needed
relifting and relaying it was really hard on my back.

The slabs I am now about to use are 600mm square and 50mm thick and
therefore weigh about 3 times what the others did. In the past I laid a
full bed of sand over the whole area, then 5 blobs of mortar under each
slab. I'm thinking that this time I should lay, level and mechanically
compact a full sand bed and just lay the slabs straight on to that.

Does anybody have any experience of laying slabs like these? Any advice
or tips to help me survive this job would be very welcome.

TIA

Steve


These are like the slabs the council use on the pavements. They are
very hard work. When I did mine I set myself targets, of like 2 slabs
a day. So each morning I did my 2 slabs, then did some easier stuff
(like crocadile wrestling) for the rest of the day.

Whatever you lay them on, if they ain't right they have to come back
up again..........

Rick

Does anybody have any experience of laying slabs like these? Any advice
or tips to help me survive this job would be very welcome.

www.pavingexpert.com.

Christian.

Steve wrote:
Does anybody have any experience of laying slabs like these? Any advice
or tips to help me survive this job would be very welcome.

As others have said, damned hard work. But I'd also add that you should
consider the real risk of permanantly damaging yourself - if you burst a
spinal disc or something, it will simply never be the same again.
Hernias are very easily acquired, too. What I'm trying to say is, if
you can possibly afford to outsource some d-i-y to a professional (who
will be well used to the work), then this is the job to choose!

David

"Steve" wrote in message
. uk...

....
Does anybody have any experience of laying slabs like these? Any advice or
tips to help me survive this job would be very welcome.

Hire a slab lifter. It gives you control over placing them and minimises the
risk of injuring yourself.

Colin Bignell

Lobster wrote:
Steve wrote:

Does anybody have any experience of laying slabs like these? Any
advice or tips to help me survive this job would be very welcome.


As others have said, damned hard work. But I'd also add that you should
consider the real risk of permanantly damaging yourself - if you burst a
spinal disc or something, it will simply never be the same again.
Hernias are very easily acquired, too. What I'm trying to say is, if
you can possibly afford to outsource some d-i-y to a professional (who
will be well used to the work), then this is the job to choose!

David


I'm not sure I would go as far as to say that you should get someone in
to do it for you. It is very hard work but it's an easy job to work
steadily at for a long time. It really does pay to get a friend round to
help - in fact I would say if you can't get a friend to help you
probably should pay someone.

Steve wrote:


Does anybody have any experience of laying slabs like these? Any advice
or tips to help me survive this job would be very welcome.


Yup.

I laid my sandstone slabs - and teh big uns were about 55kg each - on a
wet bed of about 7:1 sharp sand and (white in my case) cement, after
roughly levelling with hardcore MOT type I and gravel.

By getting the consitency right, and its rather critical - and using
about 1-2" of the 'mortar' I could tap them down with a mallet, and the
excess oozed off.

I washed each slab carefull with a wet sponge wrung out in fresh water
every wipe, carefully, leaving only a slight cement film to cleam off
with brick acid when dry.

Joints were 'grouted' with the same muck at the same time.


Dot and dab is IMHO a naff way to do it as its very easy to get rock and
collapse. But if a quick'n'dirty is what you want, got for it.


TIA

Steve

In message , doozer
writes

Final points: Don't try compacting the dry mix - it's a complete dead
loss. You just damage it while you lay the slabs and sets solid anyway
The two slabbed areas I built following the above method hold 5500
litre water tanks and they've not moved a mm. If I had to do it again I
would probably try blobs of cement.

If you rake the dry mix into ridges you can get a little bit of club
hammer and block of wood adjustment.

regards

--
Tim Lamb

Steve wrote:

Does anybody have any experience of laying slabs like these? Any
advice
or tips to help me survive this job would be very welcome.

It's of no help at all, but my father always maintains that there is
an inverse to the phrase "laying slabs" because you spend more time
lifting the damn things than laying them...

Mungo :-)

P.S. Can I claim first the phrase "cash ebb" which is the
reality instead of "cash flow"?

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Steve wrote:


Does anybody have any experience of laying slabs like these? Any advice
or tips to help me survive this job would be very welcome.


Yup.

I laid my sandstone slabs - and teh big uns were about 55kg each - on a
wet bed of about 7:1 sharp sand and (white in my case) cement, after
roughly levelling with hardcore MOT type I and gravel.

By getting the consitency right, and its rather critical - and using
about 1-2" of the 'mortar' I could tap them down with a mallet, and the
excess oozed off.

I found getting the level right with sharp sand rather difficult: if you
don't
get the right amount for a solid bed underneath the slab, tapping it down
only works up to a point, as it 'locks' solid beyond a certain amount of
compaction. I tried using a sloppy mix so it would ooze out the side of
the slabs more easily if I was banging the slab down but that didn't work
well. I had to lift and relay plenty of slabs to get their level right.

I came to the conclusion afterwards that I would have been better off
using builders' soft sand and some plasticiser, plus raking furrows in
the cement to allow easier compaction, so that the slabs could be knocked
down to the correct level. I've never tried my theory but I can't imagine
it's as
hard as using sharp sand.

On the subject of spinal discs, I would echo the warning a previous poster
gave.
I was manouevring a lot of 40kg slabs about, and 40kg bags of sand etc over
an extended time period, and I had a dull ache in my lower body that
wouldn't
go away for over a year. I only figured out it was back trouble, in fact
probably
disc trouble, when I started getting shooting pains in my legs whilst
picking
up heavy slabs. I think a disc had squeezed out and started to compress my
leg
nerves! I finished the heavy lifting but although the dull ache went, I have
trouble
getting my socks on quite a lot of mornings now!

Andy.

Thanks to everybody for some really helpful suggestions, ideas and warnings.

Steve

Steve wrote:
Thanks to everybody for some really helpful suggestions, ideas and
warnings.

About what?

Thanks to everybody for some really helpful suggestions, ideas and
warnings.

About what?

Laying heavy paving slabs. I suspect your newsreader isn't displaying
threads right...

Christian.

Christian McArdle wrote:
Thanks to everybody for some really helpful suggestions, ideas and
warnings
About what?
Laying heavy paving slabs. I suspect your newsreader isn't displaying
threads right...

Aha! I was displaying them in time order, my usual display mode - sorted
by threads, I can see "Thanks" in context. I'm using "Thunderbird",
which seems generally OK except that sometines if I click a title with
the mouse moving slightly the whole list scrolls to the top or bottom!

Chris Bacon:

Your middle name isnt Paul is it? Chris P Bacon?

NT

wrote:
Chris Bacon:
Your middle name isnt Paul is it? Chris P Bacon?

Oh, please, not again.

Chris Bacon wrote:
wrote:
Chris Bacon:
Your middle name isnt Paul is it? Chris P Bacon?

Oh, please, not again.

poor man I figured at laest someone else might find it funny.

NT

wrote in news:1114031031.945707.20740
@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:

Chris Bacon wrote:
wrote:
Chris Bacon:
Your middle name isnt Paul is it? Chris P Bacon?

Oh, please, not again.

poor man I figured at laest someone else might find it funny.

NT


Do you remember the presenter on the ITV news (southern?) - Chris Peacock?

One of my favourite names was Stella Balls - don't know why, just made me
smile.

--
Rod

Rod wrote:
wrote in news:1114031031.945707.20740
@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:


Chris Bacon wrote:

wrote:

Chris Bacon:
Your middle name isnt Paul is it? Chris P Bacon?

Oh, please, not again.

poor man I figured at laest someone else might find it funny.

NT



Do you remember the presenter on the ITV news (southern?) - Chris Peacock?

One of my favourite names was Stella Balls - don't know why, just made me
smile.

I never fail to grin at 'gardeners question time' whose assistant
priducer is always 'jo-king'.

replying to Rick, Al1686 wrote:
Got 60 2x2 and 2x3 2inch thick f ing heavy to lay. Your comment made me LOL

--
for full context, visit https://www.homeownershub.com/uk-diy...bs-171770-.htm