A Polymer Patio for the DIY Market

Layeezi - a new polymer concept in patio design

The Materials KTN has been supporting landscaper designer, Nicky Stanley in her endeavours to design a simple and quick method for laying a patio. Nicky first came up with the idea in the summer of 2006. She was installing a stone patio at the rear of a terraced property and during the hot sweaty work and the frustrating process of moving all the materials through the property she thought there had to be an easy and lighter way of doing it.  Nicky’s idea uses existing technology of rigid plastic ground grids to substitute for the sand and cement.  Her Eureka moment was in 2008 when she thought of using a flexible cover with a decorative design in order to mimic stone, wood or other finishes.  Nicky contacted the Materials KTN and spoke with Dr. Sally Beken who assisted her in material selection.  For durability, longevity and wear, Natural Rubber would seem to offer the best all-round properties.  However, producing the patio at production scale has proven difficult and tooling costs for this method are relatively costly. Nicky has innovated and after learning rubber moulding techniques in her back garden has produced a prototype rubber patio cover.  This prototype has led to interest from major retailers such as B&Q.  She is now working with a UK based moulder to attempt to find a process capable of making full sized production patio.  She is pursuing investment and has appeared on BBC2’s Dragons Den. View the Dragons Den experience

Nicky said this of the Materials KTN; ‘The advice and assistance over the last two years in my pursuit for a suitable patio cover material has been invaluable, not only in the contacts, but also the encouragement through difficult times’. View Nicky's interview and demo showing it really is childs-play to install