Patio materials and DIYing

[Susie]

Decoraholic's backyard B&A (so pretty!) reminded me that I've been meaning to ask about patio materials and DIYing experiences.

We are planning to put in a small patio, possibly this summer.  It would go in the corner formed by the existing wood deck, and the french door wall on the back of the family room.  It might be about as deep as the deck, maybe shallower.  I always thought it was dumb that we have a french door that goes from grass to carpet, so this might make it more useful.







The patio will be something fire-safe, like pavers, stone, I'm not sure
what - not wood - so we can sit around the firepit there in the summer.  I might run whatever material we use through the gate in that corner and make a path through the side yard to the driveway too (it's not terribly far).  We have had miserable luck keeping grass alive in front of the gate anyway.  The planter boxes around the deck are in terrible shape, so we have to deal with that too.

From what I understand, brick is a non-starter because of the freezing and thawing where we live.  It just won't hold up.  As between other materials, any input, comments, etc.?

[stephm0188]

We're in Ohio and have a brick paver patio. It was done professionally 10+ years ago, but it's held up beautifully. There are a few around the edges we need to dig up and reset because they've sunk or raised up slightly, but otherwise the freezing and thawing hasn't been a problem. I will say that dealing with weeds growing between the crack is obnoxious.

My neighbots have stamped concrete that looks like paver stones. It's lovely and easy to care for, but it's a bit slippery when wet.

[thatgirl2478]

We have a paver patio in Waukegan (far north IL) and it looks gorgeous still.

You need to make sure you have a GOOD base and good drainage and you shouldn't have too much of a problem with freezing/thawing.

The hardest part of it is making sure your base is a) deep enough and b) flat enough (not level - flat - it needs to slope away from your house). I did our first patio DIY and while it wasn't BAD it wasn't perfect either. I had it redone professionally a few years later (to put in drainage too).

[ohjessica]

We DIY'ed our patio a couple of years ago. I'm in a semi-rush right now so I can't post the whole experience, but I have a blog entry here:
metamorphouse.blogspot.com/2009/08/making-of-party-patio.html



If you have specific questions, let me know, I'll come back later and post more.

[ohjessica]

PS. I think a patio in that space makes sense. French doors need to open up into something more exciting than grass!

[decoraholic]

Thanks susie. We definitely did not DIY ours! So I don't have any tips there. It's the one thing in our house that we paid someone else to do from start to finish (we did the landscaping though). It is mortared flagstone over a 4" concrete base, which from what I understand if done correctly can hold up in colder climates. We ended up getting quotes on our patio in late fall, and got a huge discount because of it. Ours was more than just a patio, we we really did it as a solution to the water pooling around the back of our house since we are at the bottom of a hill. The patio is now graded away from the house, and they put drains that end out by the sidewalk in front of our house. They also attached our gutters to it. It turned our sloppy, mosquito infested yard into a draining machine.

If you do decide to hire any of it out, I'd try and see if you can get quotes now because it's their slow season. We got a quote on ours in late fall and had planned to do the work then, but Snowmageddon happened and we waited until spring since it got too cold to do the concrete. Obviously you won't want to do anything until the ground thaws, especially concrete. We kept wondering why we were getting so many widely varying opinions on the best patio/drainage solution for our yard, and we eventually figured out the obvious- that they were all just selling us on the solution they were capable of. So a guy that does pavers, will tell you pavers are totally okay, but a guy that does concrete will tell you concrete is better. We had the best suggestions from companies that do it all.

It seems like there is no perfect solution and everything seemed to have tradeoffs. Stamped concrete is slippery and can crack, and if they add color it can fade, but it's pretty. Pavers are DIY friendly but eventually will need upkeep and maintenance (weeds, fixing shifted pavers). Mortared flagstone is not as DIY friendly but holds up well.

Our french doors are about the same height off the ground as yours and we had them do a big curved step leading out from the door and down to the patio. It's probably my favorite feature and the thing that people always comment on. I don't know how DIYable something like that is, but our neighbors did something similar with pavers in the front of their house and it looks nice.

[FoxInFiji]

Yes a paver patio can definetly last in your area if you make the right base first. Brick, paver, flagstone it's all the same. Pavers are the easiest for first time DIYers though as they can require less to no cutting and you have more shapes and colors to pick from. Here let me get some more info...

[grey56]

We DIYed one last June. Ended up being 20'x20' square, and cost just over $2K in materials. My DH and FIL did all the work. We used 6"x9" pavers in a herringbone pattern. We followed instructions on *gasp* YHL for starters and also videos on HD's or Lowes' website. I have pics on FB, which I can't access at work, but I could come back later if you want.

[TBM]

M y only input is that all of the materials for a patio are heavy. It is totally worth removing a section of the fence and paying extra if you have to, to have the materials delivered as close as possible to where you are installing them.

[FoxInFiji]

Here's how we built the base of the the flagstone driveway extension:

threeacres.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/using-polymeric-sand-with-flagstone/

More images with the before and after here:
threeacres.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/rock-wall-redo/

I've always liked stamped and stained concrete but it's expensive, hard to DIY, and you can't use salt on it because it bleaches the color and pivots the concrete. I really love the polymeric sand product because it's fixable. Yes it's not as permanent as concrete but it's also a lot easy to fix, add on, or replace in the future. I prefer the texture to stamped concrete as well and it works perfectly with adjoining planters or flower bed edging when you use the same color/style of pavers. When we redo the back patio we're going to use the same brand of pavers for some small retaining walls, a built in bench with matching caps, and the patio itself. We've been slowly adding or redoing flowerbeds with tapered paver edging and it's great to mow over and keep looking nice.

Polymeric sand likes small tight joints but like I said in my blog the particular product we used was for bigger joints that you get with flagstone. The sand does get a little soft when it rains a lot but it dries out again. In between pavers you would never notice that though. Fitting the flagstone to be so tight was a huge pain. Lots of stones has to be chipped off and unlike pavers you never know how they are going to crack or if a bunch of pieces will flake off the top when you do. It's been 3 years since we installed that area and it still looks great. No weeds, no shifting (unlike the flagstone path next to it), no ant hills, no maintenance whatsoever.

HTH

[Susie]

Thanks fox and everyone.  Good information to have.

Grey, I would like to see pics if you get a chance.  I generally like herringbone patterns.

Lots to think about!

[ohjessica]

Back. Ditto everything Fox said. We used pavers from Lowes. Our patio is 16x16 and cost around $1500 in materials. It was labor intensive, but the actual process was pretty simple. It is heavy duty manual labor, so if you're not up for that aspect I'd hire out, but if you can handle it, DIY! We installed it in 2009 and live in NJ so we get our share of cold winter weather. The patio has held up well and hasn't needed any additional work. No weeds have sprouted up and no cracks so far.