Reclaimed Broken Slabs Used as Crazy Paving
This site was untidy and overgrown, with many shrub and flower beds buried in weeds and rubbish, including a great deal of rubbish. Amongst the debris, I discovered a large amount of old Purbeck paving and walling stone – or simply a pile of mixed-use material – probably one hundred years old on that site alone. Aging such materials is never an exact science, as they may have been old when they arrived on site.
With thicknesses between 50mm and 150mm I chose to lay the pieces into strong wet mix concrete – one part cement, two parts builder’s sand and two parts sandy ballast. As there was no formal edge to the scheme ( a simple pathway varying in width between one metre and three metres – I elected to use reinforcing mesh under the paving, with a total thickness of 200mm.
Pointed using the same mix as the bed, with each unit slightly proud of the mortar pointing to give the scheme a little more character, this could just as easily become a candidate for soil concrete allowing mosses and algae to colonise the surface. By utilising the paving, the client saved on exporting the material as rubbish, and the cost of purchasing another product.
Crazy paving may be laid into ‘soil concrete
