Building a patio

[simpsongal]

I posted on this a while back but we just bought about 5 tons of Tennessee Tan flagstone (cut to different rectangular sizes) - www.sislersstone.com/page/products/natural_stone/flagstone_slate.php .  It's being delivered soon, along with 2 tons of stone dust for a base layer.

Any words of wisdom on building a patio?  We plan on digging down about 3 inches, slightly graded away from the house (using string & stakes and a straightedge), laying a 2 inch layer of stone dust and dry laying the flagstone on top.

Should we rent an electric compactor? Or would a manual one work just as well?

[TBM]

We had to dig deeper than that when we put in our patio, but our ground is like concrete (heavy clay) and has no drainage.

Rent a compactor. The hand held is really hard work and takes a lot more time.

[grey56]

We did one last year. We dug WAY deeper than that. But, we used the pavers. Those were like 3" by themselves! We did a layer of gravel then a layer of the stone dust. We didn't rent a compactor and I really wish we had. Ugh, tamping was the worst!

My advice is to REALLY make sure the ground is level. Our patio has a small dip in one spot, drives me nuts. Also, lay the stones in a linear fashion. DH and I sort of spiraled out in opposite directions and when we can back together, the stones didn't fit, so we had to completely take out one person's work.

[simpsongal]

Ooh, that's some good advice on linear laying and the compactor. We'll probably dig down about 3.5 inches. There used to be a planting bed in the area, so digging away the topsoil shouldn't be too bad (underneath is solid clay).

[TBM]

Mar 18, 2013 14:41:26 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

Ooh, that's some good advice on linear laying and the compactor. We'll probably dig down about 3.5 inches. There used to be a planting bed in the area, so digging away the topsoil shouldn't be too bad (underneath is solid clay).

Everything that we read said because we have clay, we needed to dig deeper. 

We had our neighbor (a contractor) give a quote for laying a stone paver path on the side of our house, and he said that he would dig 8-9 inches.

[simpsongal]

Why would you dig so low for clay? I would it would be more necessary for sand b/c the soil is less stable. Is it a drainage issue? We would have to order gravel, do you think that's necessary?