Porcelain Patio Installation in Richmond

The client had recently bought a Victorian townhouse near Richmond Green. The original rear garden patio was a poured concrete slab with significant cracking, poor falls and visible damp tracking back into the kitchen wall.

They wanted a single, generous porcelain terrace — large format, light grey, with crisp joints and the right falls to keep water moving away from the house — and integrated lighting for evening use.

We surveyed the garden, set new datum levels off the kitchen threshold and designed a terrace 150mm below internal floor level with a 1:80 fall away from the house.

The layout uses a clean 1200 × 600mm porcelain in a stretcher bond, with bespoke hand-cut margins against the boundary walls. A low planted border along the back fence breaks up the elevation and softens the eye line from the kitchen.

The build ran over four weeks. Week one was removal of the old concrete and excavation to the design depth, including disposal of around six tonnes of broken concrete and clay subsoil.

Week two: the engineered sub-base went in across the terrace footprint, with the channel drain and soakaway laid and tested before paving.

Weeks three and four: the porcelain was laid by our in-house masons on a primed full mortar bed. All cuts were made on a wet saw on site. The 12V lighting circuit was first-fix-buried before paving and second-fixed once the slabs had cured.