A settled patio is a drainage failure, not a paving one. Water that once ran off now pools, soaks the base and carries it away season after season. We lift the area, reset the fall away from the building and relay the stone. The cost depends almost entirely on how the base material reaches the back yard.
Two identical patios can cost nearly double depending on how the base material arrives. A side yard with open access takes a truck; a back yard reached through a narrow gate means every wheelbarrow moves by hand, both ways, and that is hours of labour.
We measure the gate and the route before we quote, because access is the single biggest variable on a back yard job. We also measure the existing fall, because most settled patios now pitch back toward the house instead of away from it.
Both problems get fixed together. The stone comes up in sequence, the base gets re-graded to roughly two percent away from the building, and the pavers go back down to that new grade. The near edge, the part closest to the foundation, gets extra attention because backfill settles for years after a house is built.
Access decides the labour and the existing fall decides how much correction is available before the door sill gets in the way.
Lift and stack in order
Stone comes up in sequence so the same faces return to the front and the pattern closes cleanly at the edges.
Re-grade the base away
Base corrected and compacted to a consistent fall away from the house rather than levelled flat, which is what leaves water standing.
Relay, tamp and re-sand
Pavers reset to the new grade, plate tamped through a mat and the joints filled with fresh polymeric sand.
Foundation · Backfill
The edge by the door fails because of the house
Backfill against a foundation is rarely compacted to the same standard as the rest of the yard, so it keeps settling for years after the house is finished. When a patio pitches back toward the wall, water sits against the foundation and the settled edge becomes a wet basement problem, not just a paving one.
Correcting the fall protects the building first and the patio second. See what happens when water pools in a base, how grading and slope send it elsewhere, and what base repair costs when the layer underneath has washed out.
The house edgeFails first
Uncompacted backfillCause
The foundationCorrecting fall protects
Related Work
Other re-levelling work in Toronto
What usually needs doing at the same time as a patio.
Usually because the backfill against the foundation has settled since the house was built, taking the near edge of the patio down with it over time.
Yes, about two percent. Less than that and surface tension holds water in the joints, which is how the base underneath starts washing out.
Access. Base material carried by hand through a gate takes several times the labour of the same volume tipped straight onto a driveway.
Almost always. They come up, get stacked in order and go back down. Replacement is for stone that is cracked or spalling rather than simply settled.
No, but tell us what sits where. A heavy fire table or a hot tub is a point load and the base under it should be built for that.
It can, but it has to be designed for rather than assumed. A filled tub is a concentrated load and the base under it wants building for that specifically. Tell us before the quote and it is a detail. Tell us after and it is a rebuild.
