DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

Hi, I hope I've posted this in the right section - apologies if not!

I'm looking at constructing a new patio area in the garden.

I already have a flagged area running down the side of the house; this ends at the back garden and the lawn slopes away.

I'd like to run my new patio starting from the existing flagged area, but if I continue the fall of the existing flags and run this through to where I want my new patio to end, I end up with a difference in height of 200mm due to the slope of the garden.

I've decided to construct the patio using sleepers to raise it to the correct level. I'll 'shutter' the area with the sleepers, fill the space with compacted hardcore then lay the flags... that's the idea anyway!

My question is; as I am using sleepers to effectively shutter the area, will the end of the first sleeper need to be almost entirely buried underground? I have attached an image to hopefully make more sense of my question - the grey is the existing flags, the green is the garden and the brown is the sleepers.



Hopefully this makes some sense to someone and you can give me some advice.

Thanks in advance!

Hi evorg88,
You will need to pin the lower end of the sleepers into the ground. Tidiest way is to drill through the sleeper and drive lengths of 20mm reinforcing bar into the ground.
Regards S

Thanks for you reply stoneyboy. I have since revised the plan for the patio and have decided to make a standalone area further down the garden where the slope is shallower, and more even. I'll still need to fix the sleepers to the ground though so thanks very much for taking the time to reply.