Garden path needs paving

This is my garden path, and as you can see it has lots cracks in and looks a big rough. I'm wanting to put paving stones down to neaten it up but dont want to break the concrete and dig it up. Is there any way I can do this as a diy job and with non specialist tools?

You can just mortar bed the slabs down. Few bags of readymix mortar, a trowel, and level will sort it.

You may get the following side effects.

1) the gate won't open if the slabs are too high.
2) the exterior ground level being raised, might cause damp issues with the house wall, as you will be reducing the height from ground to DPC. (not good)

when you say stones do you mean paving slabs or something like shingle?

if its slabs then the concrete will break up fairly easily by the looks of it. If its stones such as gravel, then you could simply lay a brick edging on the existing concrete and fill with gravel.

Rip it up and start again. Leaver it up with a pick, place a brick under it. Hit it with a sledgehammer and it will brake up into small pieces. Also check if there is a drain under it that caused it to brake up in the first place.

Thermo said:

when you say stones do you mean paving slabs or something like shingle?

if its slabs then the concrete will break up fairly easily by the looks of it. If its stones such as gravel, then you could simply lay a brick edging on the existing concrete and fill with gravel.

Click to expand...

I meant slabs but I like you idea what the gravel, not sure it would look right though as none of the houses in the terraces near me have it so I'm not sure what it'll look like.

If I was to start again, what would I do exactly? rip it up,? Hardcore? Sand? Whacker? and how much would it cost for materials (exculding the paving slabs) for 3.5mx1m approx?

its only going to be foot traffic, so it will be light duty.

Break out the concrete, which looking at the photos shouldnt be to hard.

See whats underneath. If its firm then you can lay the paving on a full mortar bed (ie the same as laying bricks). Thats about what the average diy bod will do.

If we did it we would break out the concrete and put 3-4 inches of mot (or you could smash up the concrete and use that) in and whacker it down and then lay the paving as per above. You need to work out what you want your finished level as and work out the depths downwards from there. You may have a little digging to do, you may not dependent on the thickness of the concrete.

The concrete can be broken up, and bagged up and removed, or used as hardcore instead of the mot, so that wont cost anything.

If you allow about 2 bags of cement and 10-12 bags of sand, thats about £30

Not a lot of dosh, just time and effort. DO it properly and it will enhance the house and last for years. Do it on the cheap and well you can work that out!