New patios in Hastings
Make room to sit, eat and enjoy your garden.
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Written price · Photos of the work · Written guarantee
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Instant estimate to your inbox. No salespeople, no phone calls.
1. What do you want?
2. What surface do you like?
3. About how big is your patio?
- 10-year guarantee on base and surface
- Fully insured
- Fixed price in writing
The Vale Stronghold Company Ltd · Company no. 17431358
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We lay sandstone and porcelain on a full bed of mortar. We set the slope and plan where the rain will go before the first slab goes down.
Indian sandstone
Price by email
Multi-size or single-size, buff, autumn or grey silver.
Porcelain
Price by email
Large-format, laid on a full bed with a slurry primer.
Starting figures, not quotes — the number depends on access, what has to come out, the edge detail and the drainage. See how the price is built up → · Why we're not the cheapest quote you'll get
Is a stone patio right for your garden?
When it's the right choice
- You want a usable outdoor room off the back of the house and you're prepared to pay once for it.
- The area sits in reasonable sun — sandstone and porcelain both look their best dry and lit.
- You want a specific detail: a circular feature, a soldier course following a bay, bullnose steps down to the lawn.
- You need the surface to sit close to a door threshold — porcelain plus a channel drain solves this properly.
When it isn't — say so and pick something else
- It's a deeply shaded, permanently damp corner under trees. Any smooth surface will green over. Riven sandstone or a gravel and stepping-stone treatment will look better for longer.
- You're paving so vehicles can park on it. Patio slabs are not laid or bedded for wheel loads — that's a driveway build and a different price.
- Your budget is below what our build costs, and we won't thin the base to meet it. We'd rather quote you a smaller patio built properly.
- The ground has been made up recently or backfilled against a new extension. It may need to settle, or the build-up needs re-specifying — we'll tell you if that's what we find.
How we build a patio
Excavate to depth and cart away. Compacted MOT Type 1 sub-base over a separation membrane. Then a full mortar bed — not five dabs of mortar under each corner, which is the single most common cause of rocking, cracked and hollow-sounding slabs. Porcelain gets a slurry primer on the back of every unit so it actually bonds.
The falls are set with a level and a string line before laying, running away from the building at roughly 1:80. Where levels won't allow a fall, an ACO channel drain goes in flush at the house and is connected properly, not left to discharge onto a border.
Edges are the bit people notice: a charcoal or brick soldier course, cut and curved where the house is curved. Manhole covers are recessed and infilled with matching stone wherever the cover type allows it.
The detail that tells you who laid it
An inspection cover, cut and infilled with the same stone so the coursing runs straight through it. It takes an afternoon and almost nobody does it — which is exactly why it's the first thing to look for on anyone's patio photographs.
Patios we've built
Every photograph on this site is our own completed work. We don't name streets.
A fixed price before anyone starts digging
We measure, agree the build-up in writing and give you one price. It doesn't move. Not for hard ground, old concrete, rubble, roots or a soft spot — that's our risk and it's already in the number.
Zero deposit option for jobs that qualify — we confirm the terms with your fixed price.
Everyone else quotes "subject to survey" because they haven't checked the job properly. We do the survey first — measuring properly, checking levels and where the water goes, what planning rules apply, what has to come out, manholes, ducts, and access for digger and skip. So by the time we write the number down, we know what the job needs. That's why the price doesn't move, and why we can put it in writing before we start. If we ever do hit something, we stop, show you, and agree in writing what happens before we carry on. Ask your other quotes what they checked before they priced.
Ten years on the sub-base, ten years on the surface
Most guarantees quietly stop at the surface. Ours starts underneath it: the excavation depth, the membrane, the compacted sub-base, the falls and the edge restraints carry ten years, because that is the part that sinks and the part you can't check. The paving on top carries ten as well, because the laying is our workmanship — wear, staining and fair fading are the only things it doesn't cover, and the full terms say exactly which.
Porcelain and sandstone both carry ten years on the surface as well as the base — laid on a full mortar bed with a primer, so if it lifts, rocks or the joints fail, that's us and it's covered. Natural stone varies in colour and can spot, stain or green over in shade: that's the stone rather than the laying, and it isn't covered.
Common questions about patios
Sandstone or porcelain — which should I choose?
Sandstone is warmer in tone, cheaper, and forgiving: it can be cut on site all day and small variations in thickness are absorbed in the mortar bed. Porcelain is dimensionally perfect, needs almost no maintenance, and stays clean, but it is more expensive, slower to cut, and it must be laid on a full bed with a slurry primer or it will fail. If budget is the deciding factor, sandstone. If you hate maintenance, porcelain.
Why does a patio against the house need a fall?
Water has to leave the paving, and it must never head towards the building. We lay to a fall of roughly 1:80 away from the house. Where the levels don't allow it — a terrace level with a bi-fold threshold, for example — the water is caught in a channel drain at the house and taken away. This is the step most commonly skipped, and it's why so many patios end up with a damp wall behind them.
What is a channel drain and do I need one?
It's a slot drain, usually an ACO channel, set flush along the edge of the paving and connected to a soakaway or surface water drain. You need one where the terrace sits close to floor level, where the ground rises away from the house, or where a large area drains towards the building. We'll tell you at the quote stage whether yours needs one and it will be in the price.
Can you hide the manhole cover?
In most cases yes. A recessed cover tray replaces the standard cover and is infilled with the same stone or porcelain, cut around it, so the cover reads as part of the pattern. It still lifts for access. It costs more than leaving the metal cover in place, and we'll show you the price separately so you can decide.
How long does a patio take?
A typical 30–40m² patio is four to six working days: excavation and cart away, sub-base, then laying, cutting and pointing. Circular features, curved soldier courses, steps, recessed covers and drainage all add time, and any of them can add a day.
Do you point with mortar or a jointing compound?
Both, depending on the job. A flexible jointing compound is the better answer on porcelain and on tightly-jointed sandstone: it resists weeds and won't stain the surface if used correctly. Traditional mortar pointing suits wide, irregular joints in riven stone. We'll say which we're proposing and why.
Towns we cover
We cover Hastings and a 25-mile radius.
- Hastings
- St Leonards-on-Sea
- Bexhill-on-Sea
- Battle
- Rye
- Eastbourne
- Hailsham
- Robertsbridge
Worth reading
- Your new-build garden is waterlogged. Here's who's responsible.
Why gardens on new estates hold water, how to tell compaction from a drainage fault, and the order to escalate it in — developer first, warranty provider second.
Includes: how to run a percolation test and measure your topsoil depth
- Laying turf on clay: what has to happen first
Why turf laid straight onto clay dies, what the failure looks like at three weeks and at three months, and the preparation that actually works.
Includes: how to prepare clay ground and work out how much turf and topsoil you need