New garden, cracked tiles, HELP!!

[aliharman]

Hello all,

My new rear garden was completed by a building contractor in September at the cost of £7000. The new paving slabs I had put down were from B&Q and similar to Bradstone. These tiles have been covered in ice for the best part of a month now and with the thaw over the last few days, the damage is now visible. Several tiles are now cracked from side to side, with the mortar in certain places visibly cracked and moving.

Although the garden is not yet completely ruined, given that it hasn't lasted 3 months, I'm not holding out much hope for the future. I've contacted the company who carried out the work and they are coming round to have a look.

I'm worried in case they just put this down to "the bad weather".

Any advice would be much appreciated! I'm out of my depth when it comes to painting far less building work!

Many thanks in advance,

Ali

[stoneyboy]

aliharman,
From your description it sounds like ground heave caused by the deep penetrating frosts has caused the problem. This is a real problem where chalk is the subsoil material. Your contractor should have made allowance for this with a deep sub-base of a stable material.
Suggest you wait to see what they say but you may have to get specialist report prepared and take action based on the report.
end

[aliharman]

Many thanks for the reply.