About Cambridge Patios

Cambridge has a wide mix of garden situations. Victorian terraces off Mill Road sit on compacted rubble fills. 1930s semis in Cherry Hinton often have existing slabs laid on a thin sand bed with no falls. New gardens in Trumpington Meadows and Cambourne are handed over as turf and rubble, with drainage that has never been tested. The failure mode is usually the same: paving that rocks, stains and drains back toward the house rather than away from it.

Getting it right means checking the ground before specifying the material. Porcelain requires a full mortar bed and a primer slurry, without them the slabs will lift. Sandstone and limestone need sealed joints to stop water tracking underneath. Both materials need falls away from the damp-proof course, and any drainage channel or ACO drain needs to be sized and positioned at survey, not added as an afterthought. The sub-base depth, bedding method and jointing compound all depend on what is already in the ground.

We schedule a site survey before quoting. The survey checks the levels, the existing drainage and the damp-proof course clearance, then excavation, sub-base, bedding and paving are quoted as separate line items. That means you can see exactly what the groundwork costs before any paving is chosen, and the price reflects what is actually there rather than a best guess from a photograph.

Tell us the size of the garden, what is down there now and how it currently drains. We will schedule a site visit, with advice on whether porcelain, sandstone, limestone or block paving suits the site, and quote the full scope of work properly.