Patios in Manchester

Manchester Resin Drives lays patios in Indian sandstone and porcelain for back gardens across Manchester. We dig out the ground, lay a firm base, and set the slabs with a slight fall so the rain runs off. If you would rather have a smooth finish with no joints, we also lay resin patios.

Indian sandstone or porcelain

The Indian sandstone we lay is natural stone, so each slab varies a little in colour and texture, and it has an uneven, riven face, which means it was split rather than cut smooth. It gives a garden a traditional look.

The porcelain slabs we lay are made in a factory, so they are even in size and colour, with a smooth, modern look. We cut them with care, as they are hard to work.

We bring samples of both on our visit, so you can see them in your own garden light.

Do you need planning permission for a patio?

The Planning Portal says that away from the front garden, there is no limit on how much of the land around your house you can cover with a hard surface at or near ground level.

It does list some exceptions:

• building up the ground with big banks or terraces to hold a patio might need a planning application
• if you live in a listed building, you need listed building consent for any significant work, inside or out
• the rules are for houses, not flats, or homes where a planning condition or an Article 4 Direction removes these rights

The front garden has different rules. See our permeable driveways page if your patio is at the front.

Where the rain goes

Government guidance on paving front gardens says its advice applies to patios too. It says to slope paving away from the house where you can, and not to send water into a soakaway close to the building. A soakaway is a gravel-filled trench or underground chamber that lets the water soak into the ground. We set the fall of every patio so the water heads to a lawn, border or drain, away from your walls.

The guidance also says to check for pipes and cables near the surface before you dig, and we do that before we start.

Fewer cuts, less dust

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the body that looks after safety at work, says cutting paving with a cut-off saw can make very high levels of silica dust. It says one way to cut the risk before work starts is to plan the layout so fewer cuts are needed, or to have slabs cut off-site. We plan each patio around the slab sizes so we cut as few as we can.

What to get in writing

Ask for these in writing, whoever you hire:

• The stone or porcelain, the slab size and the colour.
• What the slabs are laid on, and how deep the base is.
• Which way the patio falls, and where the water goes.
• What fills the joints between the slabs.

Questions about patios in Manchester

Get a quote for a patio

Send us the quote form with your postcode and the rough size of the patio, and we'll come out, measure up, bring sandstone and porcelain samples and give you a written quote. To see the other work we do, go to the Manchester Resin Drives home page.