Landscape Bricks | Laying Them and Patio Designs

Here's a question about landscape bricks and laying them against the house as part of a patio design.

Is it okay to put brick right up next to the house?

ANSWER
Yes, you can lay bricks right up against a house. The important thing is to make sure the patio slopes away from the house for proper grading and drainage. I like to use 2%, or 1/4 inch per foot. Some contractors will do less, but I like to play it safe. This means that if your patio was 10 feet deep (distance from house out towards the yard), the elevation would be 2.5 inches lower at the outer perimeter.

This would be true if you were setting the landscape bricks into either sand or mortar.

I have the exact situation at my own home. I have an old home and the brick patio had no pitch to it. Thus, I was getting water in the house. I had the patio re-laid as described above. My bricks are dry laid in sand. Actually there is also very little difference between the inside of my house (floor level) and outside...maybe an inch or so.

You could also create some cutouts for planting beds against the house if you like. The same grading would apply as above. This also applies to whether you are using landscape bricks, pavers, bluestone, or any other paving material.