UKH

I'm looking for some suggestions for what to do behind the back of my house.

It's a patchwork of dirt, crazy paving with failed mortar and original concrete strips around the house. At one end of the house, it's effectively not drained as the crazy paving is slightly higher than the concrete strip (see first image).

This means water does pool here, but does not cause an issue other than looking a bit unsightly. As you move to the other end of the house, it's a little better at draining away to the dirt strip planter near the retaining wall.

Originally I wanted to pave the whole area, but wow the materials are expensive (in total looking at about 35m2). Also, access is really limited, I can just about get a wheelbarrow from the front, but will loose a bit of knuckle skin in the process.

For this reason, I really don't want to remove all the old concrete crazy paving and dirt below and bring in new hard core. I know this is the right way to do it, but the effort seems dissproportionate.

I might be able to get it to all fall the right way by building straight over the old surface, but it brings the finished surface really close to the damp course layer which I don't think is ideal (see second image).

A much cheaper and easier option would be just to hide it all with some pretty gravel. This won't fix the draining issue, but it will hide it. I could remove a few pavers and fill with rocks to make an informal soakaway (1.5m form the house, so less than the required 5). It's only a small catchment area that drains into this low point (5m2 maybe) so I'm not too worried about it.

What I'm not sure about is how stone will feel underfoot directly on concrete. Will they just roll around and start to look a mess. I could resin them all in place but never seen this in the flesh so don't know what it's like to live with.

What would you do (solution must be cheap, low effort and look half decent)? I don't want decking.

Option 2

You do.

Putting gravel down, might work if you had a stately home, so you could park your Aston there. In a garden, it would seem a bit odd. You might find local cats and foxes, use it as a communal toilet.

I've laid garden paving. Its an arse to get right. You can do stuff with crunchy sand (10:1 sand to cement), to hold them in place. However, what I found was that its really hard to get all the slabs level. You'll get some right, but when you remove one slab, to adjust the height, you'll upset the level ones. You can use broom handles to roll slabs. That nylon packing tape, you get on boxes, is useful. You can lay a slab over it, and if you need to move it, you can lift it. Once level you can pull it through. Moving lots of slabs and tons of sand, by hand is a good work out.

Build half a deck. Remove some of the crazy paving. Put a big flower bed on the other half. You have a useful space. It will fix the drainage. And you'll have some nice flowers to look at. If you add up the cost of the wood vs paving, cement and a few ton bags of sand there wont be much in it. (I'm currently involved in a decking project, so may be biased.)

i'd pave it but I'd run a surface drain along the wall below the dmp.

I'd make a load of big planters out of old pallets and just take up the space with those, they'll hide whatevers underneath and they look pretty good. 

I'm in the process of doing that on our scrappy patio.

Concrete.

Yep raised beds is what I would do. Assuming the yard gets enough light for things to grow. You could use railway sleepers or cheaper,old scaffolding boards. Although scaff boards are a bit on the thin side, something like 45mm thick would be better. 

I wouldn't gravel as it is a pain sweeping up leaves and debris that blows in.

I'm a bit surprised by the negative reaction to gravel. I've got block pavers, a slab patio, decking and grass lawn. The gravel area (only about a third the size of yours) was the least work to create and is now the  lowest maintenance. You imply the area is pretty level and you can lay a reasonable depth of gravel, so I don't think putting it directly onto concrete/slabs will be a problem, although I would put weed barrier  down over the whole area. 

Our gravel / stone chip areas are full of weeds. According to our neighbours the previous owner was forever maintaining them. 

I've a long term plan to obliterate them. I'm gradually increasing the veg plot. 

No comment on which to go for, but anything over 5sqm now has to be a permeable surface and shouldn't be connected to the drainage network to comply with SUDs Regs.

Get rid of the patio, plant the garden with perennial shrubs and trees with a small path through it

It's north facing and get's almost no light.

The lawn at the top of the retaining wall just about gets light.

Also, there's a door at the back of the house, so couldn't have raised planters covering all the concrete, and it would still leave the ugly concrete crazy paving.

I've also learnt I'm not big on gardening. I don't have time for it nor enjoy it so more planting areas just created more work for me. I do like bulbs though, I have loads of bulbs. They look after themselves, and when they start to look a mess I just mow them.

I'll definitely be putting a decent weed barrier down. Terram make good stuff that has a healthy design life. Might even put a geotextile under it to help it last longer.

You say this, but our neighbours used to have decking, and it was a constant source of mice living under it.

It rotted away so they've replaced it with gravel and it looks so much better.

Our gardens fall towards our houses, so the back yards are all low points where I don't think decking suites. I think decking works well when it creates an elevated platform.

Stone for low points, wood for high points.

Mostly flat, there is one end where it falls towards the back door of the garage which I'm a bit worried about. This area is all concrete and could be problematic.

This is why I was wondering about also using resin, but I figured I could try without first and see how I get on.

I was planning on 40mm depth of gravel using 20mm aggregate. Maybe.

isn't this the ideal spot for a home gym/climbing wall? 

All of our impermeable areas drain to a soakaway (the bits that actually drain that is) so I fortuantly have free reign on surface type.

next house maybe. I want to sell this one in the not too distant future.

do nothing then imo. You'll not get your investment back on the sale. It's a fixer upper for the next owner.

We'd like to tidy the place up, get a year or two of enjoyment out of it and hopefully make it more attractive for a buyer.

We had a similar issue - rubbish and cracked concrete slabs laid straight onto dirt that have been here since before we moved in - looked rubbish - didn’t have the time (or energy or money) to pull up and replace this year, so put down a thick membrane with a treated 4x2 retaining at the bottom (it’s on a little bit of a slope). Ton and a half of 20mm golden gravel gave a 40mm covering and I think it looks much better for only a few hours work.

It strikes me then that you might be building in more effort down the line if you don't take out the slabs now. Importing yet more materials into the back yard if not laid on a solid foundation might well have to be removed as you approach the doc on later remedial work  

Afaiks from you diagrams if you buckle down and remove the slabs you'll be down to dirt after a few trips to the tip. Then grass is your best option. Cheap, light to bring in  (as seed) and requires no skills and is tolerant to a not perfectly leveled and drained surface 

The shade is a problem but not insurmountable if you choose your grass carefully.

If it's a low effort/cost job I'd probably just clean, level and fix up the existing paving, maybe go with gravel or sand between the pavers rather than grout so any puddles can drain through. Add some planters with shade loving stuff in them. Cheap, easy, useable and pleasant enough.

A wheelie bin makes a good wheelbarrow alternative for narrow access.

jk

If close to the house, plant herbs for the kitchen. Some annuals, some perennials. Planters &tubs are another idea. And something climbing the wall for a little colour and hiding brickwork. A little time and money invested now and it will reward you for years. But slabs or gravel, how boring!

Grass is not low maintenance, even if you are happy to have a natural mixture of plants in your lawn it requires regular mowing.

For a small low maintenance space I'd be looking at a paved surface with sand infill to help with drainage. Then a couple of small beds for small shrubs, making sure you cover the ground (with planting) to shade out weeds.

Fairly sure you once mentioned that you work as a civil engineer. Aa such you should know that attenuation and exceedance flow are the main factors in drainage and external levels design close to buildings. With  the dpc it is usual to have it 150mm above gl to avoid damp from splashback.

When you sell the house, you dont want a building report to state that these factors need attention.

I would suggest getting the external levels falling away from the house and at least  150mm below damp. The easiest way to reduce cart away would be to reuse the existing flags laid on a minimal 6mm single size aggregate bed with a  wide gravel infill instead of pointing. The existing ground should be fairly compact, but any settlement should not be noticable in a flexible design. If it does settle , its a quick cheap  fix to regrade.  Its only 35 sq m so a few plant pots or patio furniture should tart up a bit. Raised beds could also reduce cart away.

I would be concerned about building anything up against the house. Rain splashback will go above the DPM and cause you grief in future. If anything I would dig some of the concrete out next to the wall to raise the DPM from the ground level even more

Old carpets. 

Cheap. Functional. Stops weeds. Covers sins. 

Looks dire. 

4 out of 5 isn't bad ...

I'm not actually concerned about splash back on the wall from a practical sense. It's a very sheltered side of the house and it's a cavity wall so it's not going to impact the inner wall. However, I am concerned that it will be flagged by a potential buyer's survey and cause a bureaucratic headache. This is the fundamental reason why I didn't just get on and flag it several years ago.

Heck no. It's a continuous slab that wraps around both houses is my semi detached block. I suspect it's reinforced. It would be such a big undertaking to remove it. There's also no sign of damp in the house at all so it would be a waste of effort.

Not really an issue for the job in hand. It really is a tiny catchment that drains towards the house. All other exceedance routes (from the garden) go through my garage (which is wonderful). But thankfully very rare.

A 1000 year storm (24 hours) is 83mm total depth around me. As the area is pretty flat any flooding wouldn't even breach the damp course layer. 

There's no connection to a public sewer so attenuation isn't an issue . It's all chalk so ultimately everything eventually soaks away.

If I were to flag it I'm pretty clear what I would do with the drainage (basically a long soakaway) which would be a massive improvement over what I have now.

If I go with stone chip, I would have the opportunity to encourage it to soak away by removing strategic slabs to limit the catchment that drains towards the house and bring about a bit of improvement in terms of drainage, and a massive improvement in terms of visuals.

The main issue with the bit that drains towards the house is it brings mud with it (from the paving gaps), this then gets dragged into the house (kids). 

The gravel would ultimately stop this.

This is basically what I'm mulling over. 

The issue is maintenance. There's already loads of vegetation growing thought he gaps (I literally mow the crazy paving at the moment). Scraping at all those joints is going to be a couple of days work, and if I fill it with gravel, the soil will work it's way through in time and I'll be dealing with issues with weeds again very shortly. Mortar would be more maintenance free, but still ugly as hell. If I'm going to that effort I'm flagging it properly, but since this then either results in distance to damp course layer or massive amounts of work, I'm straight back to gravel and all the improvements it brings.

I love the thinking outside the box. Meatloaf would be proud.

My crazy paving requires mowing so I currently have the worst of all worlds (although is can drain a bit)

If the concrete slab looks OK and you don't mind a small step, you could always leave the concrete exposed and gravel over the rest at a slightly higher level. If you don't like the look of this or the step, doing this a few weeks before selling, after having previously gravelled the whole plot, would be very little work and avoid some of the potential problems

The beauty of gravel is it's easy(ish) to adjust.

But I didn't think gravel below the dpm was an issue?

It's common practice when fitting byfold doors etc to have the patio flush with the finished floor level of the house. I've seen a gravel strip between patios and the house to ensure that it's free draining. In these scenarios the gravel is basically level with the dpm (or just below). I wouldn't personally recommend this, but it seems to be fairly common practice and I get why they do it. Wonder if it comes back to haunt them when it comes to sell?

In my situation, the concrete is 150mm below dpm and gravel surface would still be 110mm below dpm. Could be wrong but I don't think this would be flagged in a survey.

It's discussed here https://www.pavingexpert.com/dpc01 near the bottom of the page so I think it's acceptable.

I thought you might have been concern when it came to selling, but might have misread? 

I think you also mentioned kids walking mud in from the garden. This might be a problem for the gravel, you will then eventually get weeds growing above the weed barrier in the deposited soil and if you don't pull them promptly they can root through the barrier, which can be a real pain 

I am if it was pavers, but not so much with gravel.

The mud comes from the crazy paving. It rises through the the gaps between the pavers. The garden isn't too bad really.

I'm a bit saddened at the number of people on a climbing forum who think gravel, plastic and concrete are solutions on how to 'deal' with an outdoor space. The planet is essentially dying and because you don't 'like' to garden or are trying to avoid any amount of chores you destroy the small amount of planet you are the custodian of and can actually do something positive with. 'its all about me' while Insects disappear, birds have nothing to eat, temperatures rise. You don't like to garden? Tough, learn to, it's a responsibility.

You're surprised there are people on a climbing forum that like rocks? That should be a given. You need the gardenersworld forum.

But seriously, it's the only flat outdoor space I have. It's three metres wide. I have a sloping garden beyond the retaining wall. The patio area is highly trafficked right outside my backdoor, it's where my table and chairs and barbeque live. 

I'm not returning it to grass. It's north facing in a low point. It will instantly turn into a quagmire and it will be all in my house.

It's all well and good wanting to save creepy crawleys but this area is a part of my living space and I don't want it to be a mud pit.

If you truly are that selfless and like this sort of thing, fill your house with dirt, plant moss. The bugs will love it and you'll have a natural green carpet to walk around on.

Resin bound* gravel. The stuff national trust etc make all their paths out of. Won't be the cheapest but it'll be zero maintenance and meet all your other wants. 

*- or is it resin bonded? I forget. There's a difference. One's permeable, one isn't.

Edit: actually might not be that pricey. Quick search suggests similar prices to normal paving.

Rob is right, if you go for gravel do get a good weed barrier. 

I didn't and i may have to nuke it from orbit this summer. 

Apart from that I see nothing wrong with gravel. 

It's the only way to be sure...

Veet for Men applied very, very carefully...

I don't think anyone has an issue with paths or patios being hard standing.

But having soil rather than a hard surface is beneficial on so many levels, that with anything but the very smallest of spaces you really should try to incorporate it into garden design. 

Natural soakaway, reducing flooding and toping up our natural ground aquifers.

Slowed water runoff, reducing the severity of flooding or overwhelming of water treatment works.

Plants create a microclimate, so at a localised level help to reduce summer temperatures. (Artificial grass is terrible at raising temps in summer) Plants also soak up water, again helping with the whole flood prevention thing 

Plants help to improve air quality, especially important for those of us living in towns and cities.

Insects and birds are attracted to areas with food and nesting options, generally a slightly messy garden is the best for wildlife. But messy doesn't need to mean mudbath, or unsightly.