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Raising level of decent lawn by an inch?

Rug Doc

pfm Member
Evening All. I’m having a patio finally finished.. Covid slowed it down!

having porcelain slabs laid, so poured a concrete base for those to go onto last year, lockdown came and I needed a lawn, so turfed it to the level of the slab.. now the tiles are going down, the lawn is about an inch too low….

can I let the grass grow a bit and top the level up with topsoil, letting it grow through??

HlvDuIP.jpg
 
Top dressing will raise the level by about 1/4 inch. Can be done twice in the spring and once in the autumn to get you most of the way there.
 
Agree re. the top dressing.

It may be the photo (I can't quite see for sure), but that bubble looks pretty central. Did you allow for a fall away from the house? I think a minimum of 1 in 80 is suggested...
 
As above. We did this in a section of lawn that had subsided slightly. It wasn’t a great problem in the first place and it got fixed over a couple years. Quite satisfying. We got the gen of one of the groundsmen at our local park in those days.
 
Top dressing will raise the level by about 1/4 inch. Can be done twice in the spring and once in the autumn to get you most of the way there.

Fab, that’s great news.

Agree re. the top dressing.

It may be the photo (I can't quite see for sure), but that bubble looks pretty central. Did you allow for a fall away from the house? I think a minimum of 1 in 80 is suggested...

yes of course.. and if you look house side there’s a slot drain running the whole length.

Nice tiles!

Cool aren’t they. Dirty in that pic as they went down this afternoon, but have the same inside, they look like polished concrete or that’s the idea.

8Epgaz6.jpg



Where's the dpc?

Door level, the patio is below it by about 15mm. Next to the house is a gap, then a slot drain running the whole length for any water that manages to travel uphill!
 
Looks great! Nice to run the same flooring from inside to out.

Yep, the only saving grace of our house is the tiling I laid is continuous throughout the ground floor. I even calculated it to fit perfectly if we removed an internal wall!
 
Fab, that’s great news.



yes of course.. and if you look house side there’s a slot drain running the whole length.



Cool aren’t they. Dirty in that pic as they went down this afternoon, but have the same inside, they look like polished concrete or that’s the idea.

8Epgaz6.jpg





Door level, the patio is below it by about 15mm. Next to the house is a gap, then a slot drain running the whole length for any water that manages to travel uphill!

Sorry, I couldn't see the slot on my phone.
 
Having said, doesn't the ground level need to be something like 3 brick courses below the dpc under regs?

I'm probably way behind technology, and regs.
 
Having said, doesn't the ground level need to be something like 3 brick courses below the dpc under regs?

I'm probably way behind technology, and regs.

Without a linear drain installed it’s a no-go, but this drain system goes into a soak away at both ends of the house, we have done a belt and braces approach to the install, if a hosepipe is left running on the patio all the water has somewhere to go before it touches the house.

Without linear drainage then yes 150mm is the advised and this is what you’ll get on all new builds etc.
 
I also like those tiles Doc as I need to do my patio and could do kitchen floor at same time, what are they?

I also thought you need to account for the water line in the brickwork and have the patio a bit lower.
 
Top dressing will raise a lawn, but it takes a while. Better is to roll back the turf and put eartb underneath. Harder work, but effective immediately. I have a flower border that I filled in and turned to lawn, I top dress it every year, every year it sinks some more. 5years now and it's still slightly low.

The other feature of lawn is that it rises over time because the clippings return to the earth and that organic material can't just disappear. In 5 years the bits that butt up to patios will be higher and you'll be chopping them back.
 
We have both levelling-up and trickling-down in one thus far apolitical thread.

Funny how that happens :<)
 


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