How to build a Brick Patio

An easy to build brick patio guide

One of the areas in the home which is often forgotten, and which can enhance the value of a home is the back yard. With an increasing interest in patio gardens, it has never been a better time to create a beautiful area at the rear of your home. In order to utilise the most of the space that you have and provide a family space for entertaining you can easily create a simple brick patio with a variety of paving products supplied by Acheson & Glover.

There is a wealth of colours and textures to choose from within our paving range, so which is best? Generally we recommend choosing colours which are a good contrast with the existing materials in use around your home – for example if your brickwork used on the face of your home is light in nature, use a darker colour for your paving. You can also try if using TerraPave® Natural Aggregate Flags to use two colours which contrast each other – many of our customers have used with great effect Florento and Genoa to create checkerboard effects for a contemporary paving flag effect. Also remember that a darker flag will often feel much warmer when in direct sunlight and this warmth is often pleasant in the evenings after the sun has disappeared.

Preparation of the area.

The first stage in creating a patio is preparing the foundations for the paving to go onto. If your existing area is concrete then you will need to break it up firstly with a hired kango hammer. Trying to break up concrete with a traditional sledge hammer is quite hard going, and time consuming. It’s not hard to hire these from a local DIY hire store for roughly £20 - £30 per day. If your area consists of an existing area of paving this will make things a lot easier to lift and re-lay a patio on. If you’re area is well compacted through traffic it will need to be topped up with a suitable sub-base, and compacted with a hired plate compactor. To learn more about how to prepare the area click here for our how to lay paving guide. Also remember to check the levels with a spirit level to make sure that any water runs away from your home – especially if the patio is situated close to the home. The following table gives fall ratios which give good drainage on most projects.

To work out how to use the above table the ratios refer to rise (the height) and run (the horizontal distance). So a gradient of 1:60 indicates there is a rise of 1 unit for every 60 units. You can easily work out the exact fall required by using this calculation. The gradient = rise / run. When you have screeded the area to perfection (again see our how to lay paving guide) you are ready to set out.

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