Patios & Paving in Co. Sligo
1 business offering patios & paving across Co. Sligo.
Paving is judged on the slab and built on everything underneath it. What you choose in the yard determines how the finished patio looks; the excavation, the compacted sub-base and the bedding determine whether it still looks like that in five years. Nearly every common failure traces back below the surface. Slabs that rock underfoot, a patio that has developed a dip where people walk most, joints that have opened up, a driveway rutted where the car sits: none of those are the paving wearing out, they are the ground beneath moving because it was not dug deep enough, not compacted in layers, or not restrained at the edges.
The other thing settled before any slab is laid is where water goes. A patio is built with a deliberate fall, and it has to fall away from the house, because a surface laid dead level or tipping very slightly back towards the wall delivers rain to the building for the rest of its life. That fall is small enough to be invisible and important enough to be worth asking about. A new patio or driveway also replaces ground that used to absorb rain with a surface that does not, so the run-off has to be given somewhere to go rather than being pushed onto a neighbour or into the base of a wall, whether that is a permeable construction, a drainage channel or a soakaway. Edge restraint is the third quiet essential: without a solid edge, the whole field of paving creeps outwards over time and the joints open from the perimeter inwards.
Before booking, ask how deep the excavation is going and what the build-up beneath the paving will be, since that is the part of the quote you can neither see nor check afterwards. Establish how the edges are being restrained, how the joints are being filled, which way the surface falls and where the water is going. Confirm whether breaking up and removing the existing surface is included. Cost follows the area, the depth of dig and how much material has to be carted away, how close a machine and a delivery can get, the paving material itself, and how many cut and curved pieces the layout demands.
Patios & Paving in Co. Sligo
Common questions
Why has my paving started to rock and sink?
Because something under it moved, which usually means the sub-base was too shallow, was not compacted in layers as it went in, or was laid over soft ground that was never dug out. Water getting in and washing fines out of the bedding does the same thing more slowly. Relaying the affected slabs on fresh bedding treats the symptom and will often be enough for a small settled area, but where a whole section has dropped, the honest fix is to take it up and rebuild what is beneath it.
Which way should a patio slope?
Away from the house, always, and by enough that water actually runs rather than sits. The fall is gentle enough that you will not notice it walking on it, but it is the difference between rain leaving the surface and rain being delivered against the wall of the building. If an existing patio holds puddles after rain or drains back towards the house, that is a construction fault rather than a quirk, and it is worth raising before anyone lays anything new on top of it.
How do I stop weeds coming up through the joints?
Mostly by accepting where they come from. Weeds in paving joints are usually not growing up from the soil beneath but germinating in the debris that collects in the joint itself, which is why jointing material matters. Brushed-in sand is cheap and easy to top up but washes out and hosts seeds; a proper jointing compound resists both far better and costs more to install. Either way, sweeping the surface regularly does more than any treatment, because it removes the material weeds are actually rooting in.
Does it matter that I am replacing lawn with a hard surface?
It matters hydraulically, because ground that used to soak up rain no longer does and that water has to go somewhere. Done thoughtlessly it ends up against a wall, in a neighbour's garden or overwhelming a gully. The options are to build in permeability, to fall the surface to a channel or soakaway, or some combination, and it should be part of the discussion before work starts rather than something discovered during the first heavy rain. Ask directly where the run-off is being sent.
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