Removing garden slabs

Nikkilevel27

Hello all

We are hopefully purchasing a house soon. We have 2 dogs and the back garden is all slabs.

How easy/difficult would it be to remove half of them and lay some turf?

Thanks in advance. Never had a garden before so all new to me!

Davesnave

No one here, including you, has looked beneath these slabs to see what sort of base they are on, so your question is impossible to answer.


If the slabs have been laid well, there may be 100-150mm of compacted aggregate + sand under them, and there may be mortar stuck to the backs of the slabs. Or there might be just sand.



Slabs also come in different sizes and thicknesses, which might also limit how things are dealt with physically. For example, I have some 2' x 3' slabs which really need two people to move them.


So your question is like "My car has stopped running; will be easy to repair?"


I suggest you wait till the property is yours, lift a slab, see what's there and ask again.



Slabs are usually easy enough to sell/recycle via the usual channels. As for what's under them; much will have to come out and top soil will probably be needed to replace it.

Gloomendoom

As above, it depends on what is underneath. I am in the process of pulling up our patio. It's laid on a thin layer of sand over what appears to be the remains of a knocked down outbuilding and other builder's rubbish, paint tins and the like.

dunroving

When I bought my previous house, I inherited a multitude of unexpected presents from the seller. Among those was the huge amounts of various rubbish (heavy duty polythene wrapped around bricks and other rubble, metal picture frames, children's toys, old tools) that he had buried under the raised patio I wanted to turn into a flower bed.

I managed it eventually, but the amount of physical work nearly killed me. I later was told by neighbours that the previous owner was loath to take things to the tip so his solution was just to bury his rubbish.

So, as others have said, until you start lifting and digging, you never know.

dunroving

Gloomendoom wrote: »

As above, it depends on what is underneath. I am in the process of pulling up our patio. It's laid on a thin layer of sand over what appears to be the remains of a knocked down outbuilding and other builder's rubbish, paint tins and the like.

I think you and I must share a previous owner.

bertiewhite

It depends on how many bodies are underneath.

FreeBear

dunroving wrote: »

I think you and I must share a previous owner.

Was he also an alcoholic ?
Because if he was, he had filled my cess tank with all his empty bottles plus a few other bits of crap.

Davesnave

FreeBear wrote: »

.... he had filled my cess tank with all his empty bottles plus a few other bits of crap.

To be fair, though, crap is what a cess pit is for.

I believe we hold some sort of record for buried rubbish. Our vendors bulldozed a plant nursery into a heap, set fire to it and then spent two years covering it with horse manure from their stables.

To be fair again, they never claimed this massive pile was all manure and we just assumed it was.

Anyway, about 40 dumpy bags later......after the hire of a digger.

Luckily, at that time no one was charging for that kind of waste at the [STRIKE]tip[/STRIKE]recycling centre, or for the several dozen tyres we took there.



Different story today, which we might not see the funny side of.

gardner1

You might be lucky.......our current house had paving slabs in from garden 10 X 6 slabs with a few roses planted in odd few squares
But when taken up nothing but compact soil underneath,it took a bit of digging over/raking/ flattening but put a lawn down and it's fine

Nikkilevel27

Thanks all!

Information is great. Didn't know about all those different factors. We shall see when I get in then.

Fingers crossed it's not too bad!

Mojisola

Davesnave wrote: »

No one here, including you, has looked beneath these slabs to see what sort of base they are on, so your question is impossible to answer.

If the slabs have been laid well, there may be 100-150mm of compacted aggregate + sand under them, and there may be mortar stuck to the backs of the slabs. Or there might be just sand.

Or you may find, as we did, three previous patios (like a layer cake) - previous owners didn't bother removing existing concrete and slabs but just laid their new ones on top!