Terrace planning with a circular path and slight slope

Hello everyone,

we have a terrace and a surrounding path around our house made of exposed concrete slabs and want to replace them with nicer slabs. For cost reasons, I want to do the work myself.

As a base, my plan is to remove 5-10 cm of the current gravel-sand base and apply a new gravel layer. For aesthetic reasons, we are leaning towards porcelain stoneware slabs laid loosely on gravel bed supports. What is your opinion on that: will the slabs always wobble or can it be done properly?

I am currently planning without steps, which means we have to compensate for small height differences. The terrace itself would be planned with a 1-2% slope away from the house. The connected paths also have a slope away from the terrace (about 2%). Can that be easily done with gravel laid (there will then be an edge from the terrace to the path)? In the sketch, I have indicated the terrace, paths, and slopes (with arrows).

What do you think, does that make sense? Do you perhaps have a better idea how to solve this?

Thank you very much and best regards

Hello, if you can ensure that the subsoil under the current sand/gravel layer is still sufficiently load-bearing and is otherwise okay, there is actually nothing against applying a new gravel layer. Do you possibly have a few more photos of your sketch? In areas where there are height differences, edge restraints are usually necessary in some way. The terrace does not run around the house, only "past" it, right?

Hello,
if you can ensure that the substrate under the current sand/gravel layer is still sufficiently load-bearing and otherwise okay, there is actually nothing against applying a new gravel layer.
Do you possibly have a few more photos of your sketch? In areas where there are differences in height, edge restraints are usually necessary in some form.
The terrace does not run around the house, only "past" this, right?

Hi deezey,

thanks for your reply. What do you mean by "the terrace does not run around the house, only past this"?

In the last picture, you can see the terrace and path from the southeast (as in the sketch).
The wall will be removed, we are trying to compensate for the height difference by giving the terrace a 1% slope to the east and south. Currently, the terrace has no slope.

Hi deezey,

thanks for your answer. What do you mean by "the terrace does not run around the house, only past this one?

In the last picture you can see the terrace and path from the southeast (as in the sketch).
The wall will be removed, we try to compensate the height difference by giving the terrace a 1% slope to the east and south. Currently, the terrace has no slope.

Are there any ideas? I would really appreciate feedback :-)

Somewhere I cannot imagine the plot. Is there a Google image? Or how many meters is it from the house to the property boundary on the left side of the plan? What else is there besides the patch of grass? How many meters are there from the bottom wall of the house downwards on the plan? How large is the existing terrace? None of this looks inviting at the moment. A better site plan would help.

Are there any ideas? I would really appreciate feedback :)

Hi and sorry for the delayed response. Thanks for the pictures. Okay, redoing it once is understandable – but I'm generally not a fan of exposed aggregate concrete :). The lawn edging stones will be replaced as well, right? You definitely need some form of edge restraint (curb, wedge, adhesive, fixed bedding layer, etc.) so that the slabs in the outermost row don't shift. The lawn is currently also higher than the path itself, right? Everything has to be removed anyway at the moment. Then I would really take a look at the condition of the base layer to see if it's okay. It would be pretty unfortunate if you put in so much effort now and then the slabs settle a lot. Can you currently access the terrace at ground level, or is there a step from the door to the terrace? Depending on how the heights are generally required, it might make sense to adjust the substructure accordingly to level the heights. It might not be so easy, since there are ready-made light wells etc. that have to be considered. How large are the height differences currently? At the points where the path and terrace meet, you could try to adjust the slope accordingly so that the heights are "equalized." But as already mentioned, some information is still missing. How big do you imagine the desired slabs? Best regards Paddy