Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Thinking of getting a patio?

When we first built, I mentioned going ahead and getting your patios poured with Ryan while you built.  I said it was much cheaper to do it then vs. waiting to do it later.

I also mentioned in another blog entry that I wish we had made our patio a bit bigger.  Can you see where I'm going with this?

We have the morning room.  So when we built, we added a patio the length of the rest of the house out the morning room door, and the width the length of the morning room (roughly a 10 x 22 pad).  It's a nice size, but we also have our fire place jetting out in the middle of it.  Still more than enough room for a table that seats 4 and a grill.  However, we want more.  So now we are adding to the patio.  And YIKES! 

First of all, yes, it is a WHOLE lot cheaper to get any patio poured through Ryan when you are building.  But the cost isn't the only headache.  There is the grading issue.

We have a bit of slope on the side of the house.  That makes this tricky.  Plus they have dig down and grade in order to get to the level my existing pad is at now.  Metal bars will have to be inserted into the side of the existing pad to connect the new pad to it.  Then there will have to be a bit of grading done after the fact so there is not a 6" drop off the patio into the yard.  You see, when they do the grading for the house when it's built, there is a slope to the yard for water drainage.  Our current slope is not conducive for the new pad.  Oh, don't get me wrong, it could be a whole lot worse!  We don't have the nearly the slope some people have. We will need to reseed, again, when all is said and done.  More cost.

In the end we hope to have what we envision in our heads. A nice place to have family gatherings and cookouts with friends.  A place we can retreat too and just relax.  I think getting the backyard exactly how we want is going to take a few years.  We hope to add fence, flowers, perhaps a weeping willow in the corner.  But for now, this is a good start.  And we're very excited about it.

When we first thought of all this, we didn't realize all the extra work having an extra slab of cement poured was going to entail.  So I just wanted to share this all of you out there still considering building.  If you know you want a patio, and go ahead and let Ryan do it for cheaper and be saddled with the headache.  The cost is cheaper, and you won't have grading headaches to worry about, or a lawn to replant.  lol

In the mean time...wish us luck!

Happy Building!

14 comments:

  1. Good luck! Just wanted to mention, be careful planting a weeping willow tree. The roots will seek out water and that water may be from the water lines going to your house!

    We put in a patio and used the cement contractor Ryan used here, but we had to pay him out of pocket.

    GS

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    1. Wow! I just mentioned in one of my posts, that we would have placed the fireplace on the side of the house. As it is now the fireplace takes up a corner of the patio. I am thinking about how to create a low level deck around the patio to compensate. Thanks for the post good info.

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  2. I am getting the wood deck. Yes I realize the maintenance but I've never had one and I'd like to this time. Anyway part of my motivation to delete the fireplace is because it "Ruins" the deck the way it juts out. Since I really don't want to give up the wall inside either, the deck helped close the deal. Now we just need to start building!

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  3. It's great advice if you can do it, but Ryan doesn't do patios or decks here at all. It's a big no-can-do. We can only do it after the fact. Not only that, but then we have to deal with the whole HOA thing.

    Our yard has a lot of slope. I am going to do some research and see what make sense to go with the yard or we'll have to really go crazy with it.

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  4. Oh - yes, about the Willow. Not only do they seek out water, but we had them when I was growing up. You do not want to have to do yard work around them. The thing they do to the whole ground around them is hard to describe.

    But they are gorgeous trees.

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  6. Ryan doesn't do patios or decks here either. We hired a company to put in a fence and deck the day after we settle (3 more weeks!!!). Our PM advised us to wait at least 6 months for the ground to settle before putting in a patio. We plan to use pavers because they are a little more forgiving of slight slopes than concrete would be. Good luck -- I'm sure it will be beautiful when the work is all done!

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  7. Its my understanding that Ryan Homes in the Pittsburgh area does not do patios and decks? Does anyone know for sure. My wife and I just signed our papers with Ryan for a Ravenna with a walk out basement with the morning room and we would like a patio at the walk out door and a deck for the morning room.

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    1. No. RH will not do a deck or patio in the Pittsburgh market. You must add yourself after closing.

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  8. It would be great if you gave a link in your post to the post about the patio. : )

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  9. I am well informed with your post. It is really interesting and wonderful. I will refer this to my friend. She will like it too. You did a great job. Thanks.


    Charles A

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  10. I totally forgot you had a patio poured by RH. We didn't even ask because we had been told by many people that you should let the ground settle before doing that so we are just now working on our patio design. Knowing that you are going to be attaching your new patio to your old patio with rebar, do you know if RH included rebar in the patio they poured or did they just frame it and pour it...not sure it matters at all, but it will be less stable without the rebar. The driveway of our old house was just framed up and poured...what a mess...we had to totally replace it. Also, if you want more then just a concrete look, you can get a stamped concrete patio or you can have it poured as concrete and then they can come back and add a finishing layer that can make it look like pavers or slate or just about any design you can think of. Google stamped concrete to get an idea of what I am talking about if you aren't sure. You can add the finishing layer at a later date too.

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    1. Our house has a slab foundation. So when they poured the cement slab, they poured the patio. It's all one big piece kinda. NO rebar was needed. But the with the new slab, they did drill into the old patio and put the rebar in so the two would be connected.

      When they poured the original as part of the foundation, they were able to make sure the landscaping was right for it. It won't settle anymore than the house will (I suppose).

      Stamped concrete is awesome! But our patio does have border to make it seem more than just a cement block. And the pad was made to match. But I have seen some really nice stamped (and some even stained) concrete!

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  11. I just cannot thank you enough for the blog! So well done!

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