This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

Any feedback on using this would be welcome

Thanks

Mike

Mike Saunders wrote:
This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

Any feedback on using this would be welcome

Trot along to Mr. Cormaic's.

This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

I was thinking of using cheap Indian slate for the same purpose (probably
from stonell). I don't suppose you have a link for the cheap sandstone
you're looking at for me to compare?

Christian.

Mike Saunders wrote:
This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

Any feedback on using this would be welcome

Thanks

Mike

Never actually used this stuff but I agree, it does look good for the
price...my only concern is the thickness - 25mm?
IME the thinner the surface to be laid, the more work there is in getting it
right - with thick flags/slabs you can belt 'em all day with a flagging
mallet to get them down, with these they will just shatter, meaning that
they have to be laid on wet mortar and e-a-s-e-d into place with no force at
all, this makes things difficult in the long run and is much more laborious
and time consuming.
In an earlier post you mentioned that you have a concrete base? - this may
be a perfect substrate to lay these things on given that they ave to be laid
this way.
BP has to go on hardcore with sand on top of that to allow for drainage.

Mike Saunders wrote:
This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

Any feedback on using this would be welcome

Thanks

Mike

Layed some 20 square metres of it last year, looks well. No problems at
all. Broke one piece out of my own stupidity (hitting hard with a long
length of 4x4 wood to "tamp" it down on a rather too hard cement bed,
but other than that it was a simple (although laborious) job. Paid
around £20 sq/m, I think. Hmmm, need to finish off the path leading to
it - that's this years job.

For hi One wife, who knocked up 2 ton of concrete in the process.

"Mike Dodd" wrote in message
...
Mike Saunders wrote:
This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

Any feedback on using this would be welcome Thanks

Mike

Layed some 20 square metres of it last year, looks well. No problems at
all. Broke one piece out of my own stupidity (hitting hard with a long
length of 4x4 wood to "tamp" it down on a rather too hard cement bed, but
other than that it was a simple (although laborious) job. Paid around £20
sq/m, I think. Hmmm, need to finish off the path leading to it - that's
this years job.

For hi One wife, who knocked up 2 ton of concrete in the process.

I laid a short path and patio using Stonell Indian slate, the cheap stuff,
Autumn Gold or whatever it's called. It does call for laying on a solid bed,
so there was some difficulty with that as I was inexperienced. I would
advise people to lay on soft sand mortar with plasticiser added to allow for
adjustment.

If you use too much mortar and try and bash it down all the sand grains lock
together at a certain point and there is no adjustment left so you have to
gauge the quantity of mortar very critically. If I did it again I would
'chop' the mortar into ridges more to allow for easier adjustment, I don't
believe a few air spaces left underneath a slab are a big deal, and it makes
adjustment so much easier than trying to squeeze every last air pocket out
from under a slab.

The end result was quite pleasing ( 30 x 30 cm slates laid diamond pattern
with rectangular border strips ). Other advice I have is to start with the
thickest slates first, as they vary, to measure each slate for squareness as
some are parallelograms, and to shuffle the packs to get a random
assortment of slate colours.

Not directly related to the OP's question about sandstone but not entirely
irrelevant I think.

Andy.

Christian McArdle wrote:

This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

I was thinking of using cheap Indian slate for the same purpose
(probably from stonell). I don't suppose you have a link for the
cheap sandstone you're looking at for me to compare?

Christian.

There are quite a few on ebay, a couple of which are close to us
(Derbyshire/West yorkshire) Around #18 - #22 per m2 + Del.

Mike

One other thing; it has a pretty uneven surface. Some will have depressions
which will puddle rain water for days making the patio unpleasant to use.
Suggest putting these at the edge rather than where you intend to sit. Also
make sure the grouting allows rainwater to run away.

cheers, Davy

"Mike Saunders" wrote in message
...
This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

Any feedback on using this would be welcome

Thanks

Mike

Mike Saunders wrote:
This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

Any feedback on using this would be welcome

Thanks

Mike

I laid about 50 sq meters of it a year or two ago..

Mainly over a crushed limestone base..but actually bare earth ain't
bad...I used a wet sharp sand and WHITE cement mix. about 5:1. Very wet
so that it would puddle back down as I tamped the stones down onto thick
beds of it. I pointed up with the same mix, and then carefully scraped,
sponged and finally brick-acided the spare mortar off the stones.

Doing a computer style picture of the mosaic worked rather well.

Looks great now,except in one area where water collects it looks like
Myra Hindley has been visiting. My geologist relative things it's
manganese oxide leaching out of the stones. Looks lik blood to nme tho ;=)

Christian McArdle wrote:
This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

I was thinking of using cheap Indian slate for the same purpose (probably
from stonell). I don't suppose you have a link for the cheap sandstone
you're looking at for me to compare?

Christian.


I paid about 24 a square for it.

Scotsdales do it I think, though I didn't get mine from there.

Phil L wrote:
Mike Saunders wrote:
This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

Any feedback on using this would be welcome

Thanks

Mike

Never actually used this stuff but I agree, it does look good for the
price...my only concern is the thickness - 25mm?
IME the thinner the surface to be laid, the more work there is in getting it
right - with thick flags/slabs you can belt 'em all day with a flagging
mallet to get them down, with these they will just shatter, meaning that
they have to be laid on wet mortar and e-a-s-e-d into place with no force at
all, this makes things difficult in the long run and is much more laborious
and time consuming.

They don't shatter that easily but thickness varies from 15 mm in places
to over 30mm on the riven slabs (hand riven too by the appearance)
...that's why I ended up with a wet mix that would flow, rather than a
dry sand/cement mix. I simply couldn't thump them hard enough to GET
them to settles, and they were sufficiently uneven to need very variable
beds...

In an earlier post you mentioned that you have a concrete base? - this may
be a perfect substrate to lay these things on given that they ave to be laid
this way.
BP has to go on hardcore with sand on top of that to allow for drainage.

Andy wrote:
"Mike Dodd" wrote in message
...
Mike Saunders wrote:
This seems good value for money but maybe tricky to lay

Any feedback on using this would be welcome Thanks

Mike
Layed some 20 square metres of it last year, looks well. No problems at
all. Broke one piece out of my own stupidity (hitting hard with a long
length of 4x4 wood to "tamp" it down on a rather too hard cement bed, but
other than that it was a simple (although laborious) job. Paid around £20
sq/m, I think. Hmmm, need to finish off the path leading to it - that's
this years job.

For hi One wife, who knocked up 2 ton of concrete in the process.

I laid a short path and patio using Stonell Indian slate, the cheap stuff,
Autumn Gold or whatever it's called. It does call for laying on a solid bed,
so there was some difficulty with that as I was inexperienced. I would
advise people to lay on soft sand mortar with plasticiser added to allow for
adjustment.

If you use too much mortar and try and bash it down all the sand grains lock
together at a certain point and there is no adjustment left so you have to
gauge the quantity of mortar very critically. If I did it again I would
'chop' the mortar into ridges more to allow for easier adjustment, I don't
believe a few air spaces left underneath a slab are a big deal, and it makes
adjustment so much easier than trying to squeeze every last air pocket out
from under a slab.

I say go wet and sloppy. JUST dry enough to not slump under own
weight..most of mine were laid in what looked like a vile porridge. The
fact that I had a limestone base underneath meant surplus water drained
pretty fast..this helped stop slumping as the mixture dried out' long
before it 'set'


The end result was quite pleasing ( 30 x 30 cm slates laid diamond pattern
with rectangular border strips ). Other advice I have is to start with the
thickest slates first, as they vary, to measure each slate for squareness as
some are parallelograms, and to shuffle the packs to get a random
assortment of slate colours.

Not directly related to the OP's question about sandstone but not entirely
irrelevant I think.

Andy.

Davy wrote:
Also
make sure the grouting allows rainwater to run away.

Not necessary. Simply arrange a slope to an edge..1:500 is all it takes.
a cm over ten meters.

Puddles are a pain, so any deep rives will have to be thought out.