ᐅ Planning a Ground-Level Patio with Slope – Any Experiences?

Tolentino schrieb:

But you don’t dig down to frost line for paving, or do you have some kind of giant wheelbarrows?

Since when do you pave down to the frost depth, especially for a patio with no significant load? The advantage of paving is its flexibility—it can handle small shifts, like one stone moving a millimeter higher than another during winter, without problems. It’s different when you glue large patio slabs onto a screed bed. That’s no longer paving. Also, the modern large-format patio slabs aren’t comparable to working with paving stones in sizes around 10x20 to 20x30 centimeters (4x8 to 8x12 inches). You can vibrate compact cobblestones, but you can’t do that with 3cm (1 1/4 inch) thick slabs measuring 90x90 centimeters (35x35 inches).

Tolentino schrieb:

I still think a wooden deck is easier to build yourself—at least if you haven’t done either before.

I only have experience with paving (standard-size klinker bricks) and think you’re making it sound more complicated than it is. We screeded the patio width in two steps (who as an amateur has a 5-meter (16.4 ft) screed straightedge?), using 3-meter (9.8 ft) roof battens as screeding guides and spliced a small piece at the bottom. You can get 5-meter (16.4 ft) battens as well, but we didn’t want to buy any just for that.
Is a wooden deck really easier? Maybe. It didn’t seem that way to me when I looked into it. And in the end, you can hardly avoid paving if you also do paths and the driveway yourself.

WilderSueden schrieb:

Since when is paving done on frost-free depth, especially for a terrace without significant load? The great thing about paving is that it’s flexible and doesn’t have problems if one stone shifts a millimeter higher in winter than the one next to it.

It would be nice if it only shifted by about ± one millimeter. But if you don’t build on frost-free depth, depending on the soil below the frost protection layer, sooner or later there will be more than a millimeter of settlement. This is not primarily related to the load. When water that cannot drain quickly freezes, it creates a cavity in the substructure. And this settles sooner or later. Sure, a paved terrace won’t become completely unusable, but it won’t look very neat either. If you have sandy soil, like in the Märkisch region, that’s no problem because it is permeable. But if not, you have the choice to either build on frost-free depth or excavate an area larger than the actual paved surface and create a slope, or drain the subbase. I don’t know which option is the most labor-intensive.

WilderSueden schrieb:

I only have experience with paving (standard-size clinker bricks) and think you are making things look more complicated than they are.

I don’t want to make things more complicated than they are; I just claim that (for a layman) building a stone terrace is more difficult and demanding than a wooden terrace. For example, I believe you can manage a wooden terrace on your own, which I don’t really see for a stone terrace.

I wasn’t talking about the stone formats, only about the subbase. And let’s be honest, terraces nowadays are less often paved with clinker bricks and more often with 50 x 50 x 4.x cm (20 x 20 x 1.5 inches) concrete slabs. That is still paving, usually set in a gravel or crushed stone bed. We paved our driveway with 20 x 30 x 8 cm (8 x 12 x 3 inch) slabs, and that is definitely more complicated than using the standard 20 x 10 cm (8 x 4 inch) bricks. You can no longer pick them up with one hand and place them quickly; you have to use both hands to set each slab down. Adjusting them afterward is harder because the stone weighs about 9 kg (20 lbs) instead of 4 kg (9 lbs). The patio slabs are thinner and not much heavier, but the format is more cumbersome.

WilderSueden schrieb:

We leveled the terrace widthwise in two stages (who as a layman has a 5 m straightedge?). For leveling guides, we used 3 m (10 ft) roof battens and patched a piece at the bottom.

That was exactly my point. As a layman, you don’t have such tools, so you end up patching pieces and either have more work setting the stones because the slope along the patched “joint” isn't exact, or you have to level multiple overlapping times. Two beam ends on point footings are simply much easier to set exactly at the desired slope, no serious argument against that.

WilderSueden schrieb:

Is a wooden terrace really easier? Maybe.

WilderSueden schrieb:

It didn’t seem that way to me when I looked into the topic.

Strange, in theory it seemed much more time-consuming to build a stone terrace. I can’t be 100% sure either, but I have experience paving, so I know what kind of effort and backbreaking work it involves. I have also done individual steps for wooden terraces in various projects (fences and attic), so I feel confident to make that judgment. Who knows, maybe during the project I will discover completely new problems I can’t foresee yet. I will share updates then (though, as said, not before next year).

WilderSueden schrieb:

In the end, you can’t avoid paving if you want to do paths and the driveway yourself anyway.

For me, that’s more of a reason to have some variety. After laying the driveway, I really didn’t feel like placing even a single edge stone or leveling another gravel bed. But maybe I’m just a softie.

We built two terraces with solid WPC decking boards (75% wood content), featuring a closed deck design. The base is made of grass pavers, leveled and supported with 3, 5, and 8mm pads, then screwed down.
The first terrace has been in place for over 10 years and is still very comfortable to walk and crawl on barefoot.
We clean it annually with a pressure washer, and that’s all it needs.

Offtopic schrieb:
Do you have one? If so, please share a photo. I would still accept hollow-chamber WPC decking, but wood needs to be sanded and oiled eventually, etc.

If you install that WPC stuff facing south, I wish you good luck—this material can’t handle sun exposure and becomes brittle :-(

I don’t want to turn this into a big wood vs. stone debate, so I’ll just briefly address the topic of frost protection. Nowhere in any book have I found recommendations to build a pavement down to the frost-proof depth. Instead, they mention a base layer of 15-30cm (6-12 inches) of gravel, depending on load and soil conditions, and in some cases with very impermeable soils, an additional option of 10-20cm (4-8 inches) of drainage gravel. Even among landscaping professionals in the neighborhood, I haven’t seen anything approaching the 80+cm (32+ inches) depth that we would need here for frost protection.

Yes, you can do it that way, but then proper drainage is necessary (using drainage gravel, with the soil underneath also sloped away from the planned terrace). I’m not denying that in practice this often doesn’t happen. That’s why stone terraces often don’t look great after about 10 years.

I just wanted to at least compare similar things. Not like comparing spoiled meat with dried plums.

But yes, we can end the discussion now. Especially since the original poster has already bought porcelain stoneware tiles, so neither option is actually relevant for them... (I only just read that again...) Sorry for that!