A patio is a lid. Whatever the water was doing across that ground before, it carries on doing underneath, except now you cannot see it and you have paid to cover it up.
Hardscape is the most expensive thing most people ever put in a garden, and it is the thing most often built on an unanswered question. On heavy south Louisiana clay, water does not soak away. It travels. Before anybody quotes you for pavers, settle these.
Six questions worth an argument
- Where does the roof water land? Downspouts that currently spill onto grass will spill onto stone, and stone moves it further and faster.
- Which way does the ground fall? Stand in the space after heavy rain rather than on a dry Tuesday. Watch, do not guess.
- What is the fall away from the house? A finished patio should shed water away from the building, and it should still do that in ten years once the base has settled.
- Is there anywhere for the water to go? A drain that runs to a low corner of the same garden has not solved anything, it has relocated the problem.
- What is under the base? Clay that holds water will heave. That is why a proper base depth is not the place to save money.
- What happens to the lawn beside it? Runoff concentrated at one edge will kill a strip of turf within two summers.
We have lifted patios that were three years old and perfectly built, because nobody answered the drainage question first. The stonework was not the problem.
Why winter is the right time to ask
With the growth gone you can see the grade. The ground is firm enough to take machinery without ruining the lawn, and a rainy week gives you free information about where water collects. It is also the quietest part of our year, so the work is not competing with the mowing schedule.
What a proper survey looks like
Someone walks the whole run of the property, not just the patio footprint. They look at the roof line, the neighbouring ground, the existing drains and the soil in a spade sample. Then you get a plan that puts drainage before stone, in that order, with the cost of each written down separately so you can see what you are paying for.