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Advice to find the same patio slab please?

#1 · 14th May 2023, 7:58 pm

Hi all,

I had to dig my garden and some of my patio slabs are broken and I need to find the exact same type (or very close). Could someone help me identify the type of slabs from the photos attached? Photos attached are dry and wet.

When I bought my house the garden was already designed by the previous owner and didn't have any information/invoice from them. I went around on Google and ordered some samples, but no luck...

Thanks for your help

Uploaded files:

#2 · 15th May 2023, 7:30 am

Hi @jcourtois

Great question and welcome to the Garden Ninja forum.

When trying to source matching paving for a garden it's important to do a few things. (A number of them you've cleverly done)

Measure up the exact size of the main pieces of slab (to know if they're standard sizes or cut individually by a bespoke stone mason)
Take pictures both wet and dry to show both colours
To make notes of any details ie clean cut edge or riven (wavy naturalistic edges/surfaces)
Try and work out whether they are manufactured (concrete) or real stone - manufactured will have similar patterns on certain pieces and if chipped will contain a mix of concrete and chippings inside, real stone won't and looks much more natural as the pieces are unique)

To find a paving match what I would do is first take measurements of the pieces needing replacing. Usually, they come in measurements such as

600mm x 600mm
600mm x 900mm
900mm x 300mm
300mm x 300mm

I would then get in touch with the main stone sellers' websites with your pictures and size requirements to see what they have that is similar.

Another option is to order samples of stone from them that look the same. With your stone, it looks manufactured which should make things easier to find online. Either slate or other dark grey 'charcoal' coloured option. There are plenty of websites and even a trip to B&Q can help you source a replacement.

Worse case when not use the missing paver to create a beautiful planter for some low-fuss evergreen ground cover like Camomile or Pachysandra? It can turn a plain patio into something much more engaging!

Hope that helps!

Lee

#3 · 15th May 2023, 8:19 am

Thank you Lee, very useful advice.

I measure them and they are actually 440mm x 440mm which doesn't seem to be standard. I can see some patterns in the slab, some are identical so they would have been manufactured.

I did order grey sample but didn't get any match, I'm planning to do some blue/black ones, but "charcoal" might be an option too.