Hello everyone,
We have a terrace and a surrounding walkway around our house made of precast concrete slabs and want to replace them with more attractive slabs. To save costs, I plan to do the work myself.
My plan for the base is to remove 5-10 cm (2-4 inches) of the current gravel-sand subbase and apply a new layer of gravel. For aesthetic reasons, we are leaning towards using porcelain stoneware tiles, loosely laid on gravel bedding. What is your opinion on this: will the tiles constantly shift, or can this be done properly?
I am currently planning without steps, which means we need to compensate for small differences in height. We would design the terrace itself with a slope of 1-2% away from the house. The connected walkways also have a slope of about 2% away from the terrace. Is it easy to manage this with loose-laid gravel (considering there will be an edge between the terrace and the walkway)? In the sketch, I have indicated the terrace, walkways, and slopes (with arrows).
What do you think, does this make sense? Do you perhaps have a better idea on how to solve this?
Thank you very much and best regards
We have a terrace and a surrounding walkway around our house made of precast concrete slabs and want to replace them with more attractive slabs. To save costs, I plan to do the work myself.
My plan for the base is to remove 5-10 cm (2-4 inches) of the current gravel-sand subbase and apply a new layer of gravel. For aesthetic reasons, we are leaning towards using porcelain stoneware tiles, loosely laid on gravel bedding. What is your opinion on this: will the tiles constantly shift, or can this be done properly?
I am currently planning without steps, which means we need to compensate for small differences in height. We would design the terrace itself with a slope of 1-2% away from the house. The connected walkways also have a slope of about 2% away from the terrace. Is it easy to manage this with loose-laid gravel (considering there will be an edge between the terrace and the walkway)? In the sketch, I have indicated the terrace, walkways, and slopes (with arrows).
What do you think, does this make sense? Do you perhaps have a better idea on how to solve this?
Thank you very much and best regards
Hello,
if you can ensure that the substrate beneath the current sand/gravel layer is still sufficiently load-bearing and otherwise in good condition, there is generally no objection to adding a new gravel layer.
Do you possibly have a few more photos to go along with your sketch? In areas where there are height differences, edge restraints of some kind are usually necessary.
The terrace doesn’t run all the way around the house, just past this part, right?
if you can ensure that the substrate beneath the current sand/gravel layer is still sufficiently load-bearing and otherwise in good condition, there is generally no objection to adding a new gravel layer.
Do you possibly have a few more photos to go along with your sketch? In areas where there are height differences, edge restraints of some kind are usually necessary.
The terrace doesn’t run all the way around the house, just past this part, right?
deezey schrieb:
Hello,
if you can ensure that the base underneath the current sand/gravel layer is still sufficiently load-bearing and everything else is fine, there is basically no objection to applying a new gravel layer.
Do you maybe have a few photos to go with your sketch? In areas with height differences, some type of edge restraint is usually necessary.
The terrace does not run around the house, only “past” this part, right? Hi deezey,
Thanks for your reply. What do you mean by “the terrace does not run around the house, only past this part”?
In the last picture, you can see the terrace and path from the southeast (as shown in the sketch).
The wall will be removed, and we are trying to compensate for the height difference by giving the terrace a 1% slope towards the east and south. Currently, the terrace has no slope.
schlukkl schrieb:
Hi deezey,
thanks for your reply. What do you mean by "the terrace does not run around the house, only past this part"?
In the last picture, you can see the terrace and path from the southeast (as in the sketch).
The wall will be removed, and we plan to compensate for the height difference by giving the terrace a 1% slope toward the east and south. Currently, the terrace is flat with no slope. Are there any ideas? I would really appreciate your feedback :-)
I can't quite picture the plot anywhere. Is there a Google image? Or how many meters are there on the left side of the house to the property boundary? What is there besides the patch of grass? How many meters are there then from the house wall at the bottom? How big is the existing terrace? At the moment, none of it looks very inviting. A clearer site plan would help.
schlukkl schrieb:
Any ideas? I would really appreciate some feedback 🙂Hi and sorry for the delayed response.
Thanks for the pictures. Okay, redoing it once is understandable – but I’m generally not a fan of exposed aggregate concrete 🙂.
The lawn edging stones will be replaced too, right?
You definitely need some sort of edge restraint (curb, wedge, adhesive, fixed bedding layer, etc.) so that the pavers in the outermost row don’t shift.
The lawn is currently higher than the pathway itself, isn’t it?
Everything will have to be removed anyway at this point. I would seriously check the condition of the subbase to see if it’s in good shape.
It would be quite unfortunate if you put all this effort in and then the pavers settle unevenly.
Do you currently have a flush transition to the terrace, or is there a step from the door to the terrace?
Depending on the required heights in general, it might make sense to adjust the base construction accordingly to even out the levels.
That might not be so simple, considering there are also prefabricated light wells and so on that need to be taken into account.
How large are the height differences at the moment?
Where the path meets the terrace, you could try to grade the slope appropriately to smooth out the level differences.
But as mentioned, some more details are still missing. What size are you thinking of for the pavers?
Best regards,
Paddy
Similar topics