The reliable way to hire a pro

Hi, I'm hoping to get some advice. I have a patio in my backyard that's about 2m by 3.5m, sitting on a base of mortar and compacted sand. It's in pretty good shape, with no cracks or shifting. I'm thinking about raising it a bit and possibly expanding it to 5m by 5m. Someone suggested that I could just add 100mm of crushed stone over the current patio. Does this sound like a good idea? Apologies if I'm missing something here—I’m not quite sure what I'm doing.

Have had a leaking from tub and shower, repairs have been completed. Should my celing be checked or treated to prevent mold ? How do i determine how much of ceiling to replace?

Hi, we just got the front of our house done with sand and cement render. It's January, so it's pretty chilly, and it was applied about a week ago. A painter mentioned it's okay to go ahead and paint now as long as we use a stabiliser or solvent-based primer first which is convenient since we still have the scaffolding set up. However, we've also been told by people that external render can take anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months to fully dry. So, its a bit confusing to know what to do. How long should we actually wait before painting the new external render? And how do I check if it's completely dry? Keeping in mind that it's the middle of the cold season. Thanks a lot for the help!