You may have already been to my site for building a patio. It's at the link below. My article explains what we did for our bluestone patio in Southern New Hampshire, in great detail. I read so many depths of base materials recommended online and in books, that in the end I thought I'd go ask what the local landscaping supply/patio builders did. They also argued back and forth a bit about the right depth, but for them it was one saying 10" and the other saying 12". The guy saying 12 was guy who actually did the patio builds for them, and said we'd be sorry if we didn't go that deep. To this day, I don't know it 12 inches was overkill, but I do know that the patio has now been through 2 tough winters, and is still as level as they day we completed it. I'd check with local experts to see what they recommend for base depth and materials. I've got quite a detailed report of our build on my site, so I won't duplicate the same article here. Also I think you were referring to using the landscaping fabric below the base layer at the bottom of your excavated pit. That is the correct thing to do. It has nothing to do with weeds, or preventing grow in the patio. It's there to keep the soil beneath the crushed rock from migrating up, and to keep the crushed rock from migrating down. It acts as a barrier to keep setting at the base of the base to a minimum. Hope my article helps. Link below.--Petet Here is a link that might be useful: How to build a stone patio

yes joel, quiet a shift you pretty much have it one mate, yes a shift in lifestyle to a degree definately a shift in location, but not a shift in the philosophies i aspire. yes i will in all aspects adhere to what i suggest recommend to others, no i can't change the mcmansion manicured lawn set, yes the lawn on our place won't look that manicured it won't get any watering from us nor will it get any other man made or chemical application. as we are on a corner block the footpath represents app' the same area of available lawn space, so we will be planting the footpath with habitat trees as mauch as we can, that will minimise that grass area to a small degree, however there will not be much lawn in the yard, the yard will be utilised for those supplementry type activities (i find terms like sustainability and self-sufficiency don't carry any attributes to attract the masses it is like "tooth fairy" stuff isn't it, and sad to say with the undercurrent of making dollars in the permy' sector that word to is now being rejected by the lack of following building in the simple terms of it). so we need vege' gardens and as much room as possible for food trees as well as some of the more exotic natives especially to create atmosphere around the pool/patio area, where we will pretty much live in the summer time. at present (this could be modified) we are wanting to put in two 5,400 (24,500 ltr) imp' gallon water tanks, they will take up app' 14.2 sq/mtrs of space. the tank size could yet be settled back to the 3,200 imp' gal' (14,300 ltr) size, city administrators think that a tank in a garden looks uglier than most garden sheds but you can put as large a free standing garden shed as you like where you like, not so when it comes to water conservation, silly hey?? but yes i am still very much critical of what we humans are doing in the name of providing accomodation, in these new suburbs now the ruling bird is the crow (in my opinion not native but so out of control the officials don't want to deal with it) and the indian myna(h) ferel. so we have new generations of children who if they don't get to go to an expensive tourist attracting nature park/zoo/circus will never know that we have more birds than the 2 afore mentioned species winging our skies. where we are is close to some nature reserve so at least i can attract some of a small variety of resident good birds. there are no frogs but we can change that. still after spending many months living in a newer sub-division than that where we currently are there is no likleyhood that i can see of this mythical but wonderful shed-culture that existed in the 'burb's way back in the 40's & 50's and in rural up to about the 80's, but i would welcome it with open arms. and as our 2 car garage will be converted to a games room for the pool table and an area for tall tales and fishing stories we may well attract some of the neigbourhood hey? of course in today's world of litigation they will have to sign a waver won't they?? one neighbour has come over and introduced himself as i will when i catch site of other neighbours in their gardens, certainly want to be friendly at least. and our quicky vege' garden has already been a trail blazer though it hasn't attracted any looks from neighbours so far. and where the yuppy standard for water conservation is a tank of less than 1,000 litre capacity (no enough to brush your teeth with hey chuckle) our tank(s) will reset the goal posts. please excuse the typo's len

To have the forum be most useful, you need to corroborate whatever issues you bring up, with pictures. We need to SEE whatever problems you mention, such as "...where it's about 6' below the slab ..." in order to be able to evaluate what you're asking about. (The picture above does not show this.) When you have an idea, such as "retaining wall/planter box," you need to sketch out a VERY SIMPLE plan that shows us what you're thinking about, in order for us to know if you're on the right trail, or the wrong path. (The plan needs to include only the relevant areas ... not the whole back yard.) The plan and pictures should corroborate each other.

Is your garage insulated? Is it covered with another room? Trying to come up with issues that would be bad but some of the options depend on construction techniques. What does the Epoxy paint manufacturer say about new concrete? Has the door been open much? New concrete is very wet and will make the humidity in a closed garage quite high. Not sure how the Epoxy changes that? It would probably slow the curing down some and extend the wet time. Concrete dries forever but by a year, it has slowed down considerably.