Eglu Cube Coop For Sale

[Olly]

AHave any of you ever used recycled flags or bricks or something similar? I just wondered if there are any pros and cons (apart from the obvious ones about no waste!). I'm still pondering on what to do with my garden, where the patio needs relaying and enlarging in size.

 

It's a bit of a dilemma - stone has to be quarried, cement products are very damaging to the environment - I'd like it to be as 'green' as possible, and I'm planning to re-use the existing slabs if I can incorporate them into the design, but I will need some additional paving. Any ideas, Omleteers?

[Cinnamon]

We have a crazy paving patio,more from necessity than anything else,as it was all we could afford at the time.

Its simple - just collect as many slabs as you can from round & about (Freecycle is great),break them up,mix them up then lay them.

 

the cons are that as there is more pointing,there is more pointing to break up when the patio gets old,as ours is now....its crumbling away all over.

Plus it can look patchy if you don't have enough,then get some more slabs & do a bit more,if you see what I mean. You really need to get all the slabs you need first - better to have too many than too few.

 

Ours is coming up as soon as we can afford the new slabs (we want Indian sandstone),but its done us well on a very tight budget for 19 years or so.

[The Dogmother]

I have loads of paving slabs from Freecycle that I'm going to use for a project. You shouldn't have any problems finding some.

 

Phil used to have a recycled patio at his old house - he'd laid it using entirely reclaimed materials; bricks, old carved stone, bottle bottoms, large marbles - it was fab!

[Cinnamon]

Yes,ours is more than just broken slabs too - there is slate,large pebbles & some bottle bottoms in there too.

[Charlottechicken]

Most of my paving is recycled, half the garden was crazy paved when I bought the house The paving changes as you go down the garden and no-one has ever noticed I re-used a lot of the crazy paving on the path and under a shed.

 

I did do a little patio area but ran out of paving slabs so edged it with old blue Victorian paving bricks, which were buried in the garden. It made the whole thing 5" wider all round and looked fab! I used the remainder I dug up to make a proper Victorian blue brick front path, and just had to buy a few bits of Victorian style new rope edging to finish it off.

[Olly]

Thanks - Charlottechicken, I more or less knew you'd have used something recycled! I like the idea of a mix of materials. I'm afraid Indian sandstone is off my list of options for ethical reasons. I'm doing a bit of Googling for local reclamation yards, got someone coming to advise on options for the garden tomorrow , so they may have some ideas.

[Charlottechicken]

Right, apologies for the link to my own blog (saves using a picture hosting site anyway!), but I've just done a little paving project this week. Hopefully it is self explanatory, but everything was re-used (apart from the sand and cement, which was leftover from previous projects) and you can see some of the different paving in my garden. I appreciate that it isn't to everyone's taste, but it cost nothing and I think it is in keeping with a small Victorian terrace!

 

***paving project***

[The Dogmother]

Well done Claire, job well done!

[Olly]

That looks brilliant - I'm very impressed! I know my limitations - time and energy-wise, so I'm going to Get a Man In to do the job. I'm waiting for a quote and bracing myself!

 

Thanks for the replies. After looking at various options, and also considering whether I could mix-and-match my existing slabs, I think I'm going to go for new man-made ones, but I am going to re-use the slabs I already have in the front garden, which needs a revamp, and also to expand my apiary at the end of the garden, and to pave between the vegetable beds. A friend who wants some hardcore is probably going to take the bricks which currently make up a retaining wall (they're not very good ones), and any bricks or slabs that are left I will put on Freecycle so they won't go to waste.

 

As I type, my next-door neighbour's front garden is being dug up (I was very surprised to hear the digger start up at 9.00 am on a Bank Holiday!) and the slabs are now in huge chunks waiting for a skip. I hope it's going to be recycled as hardcore, but it seems an awful waste.

[Lewis]

Looks good - well done Claire

[gongladosh]

yep, it looks good!

[Charlottechicken]

Thanks!

 

Seeing this thread at the top of the page has aroused my curiosity though, Olly, is the job done yet?

[Olly]

No, I have a projected date for the first or second week in July - I am very impatient, having planned this I want it done NOW!

 

I should have the chap coming round again in a week or two to finalise the design, and I need to start moving a few shrubs that I want to keep and finding a home for my various pots and so on elsewhere in the garden. I've got a Belfast sink planted with herbs on the existing patio, I think I'm going to leave that for him to move as it took two of us to lift it when it was empty!

 

I am so glad I'm having it done, next door's extension has proved a nightmare - there's a horrible looming breeze-block wall overpowering everything, it will be rendered eventually and then it won't look so bad, but having builders there every day is proving quite stressful. (They are not working on Sundays/Bank Holidays now, after I complained to my neighbour.) I love my garden, so this gives me something to look forward to.