Hi folks.
Hope all are well.
Can someone give me an overview of procedure to install a paver patio?
I tried the search function and tearing off a fingernail would seem more productive…
thanks,
Hub
Hi folks.
Hope all are well.
Can someone give me an overview of procedure to install a paver patio?
I tried the search function and tearing off a fingernail would seem more productive…
thanks,
Hub
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Replies
http://www.pavingexpert.com/pavindex.htm
It's a UK site, so the vocabulary will vary.
perfect!
thanks...
Do not excavate dirt unless you absolutely have to. Use "Round Up" and kill all plant life. Apply once a week for 2-3 weeks. Place borders (usually same concrete pavers, but set in portland cement at elevation you desire. Cover area with landscape fabric. Add about 2-3" of sand over fabric. Level sand, using 8' level and paver as guage block. Layout pavers using straight edge and slight marks in sand. You can try snapping a line, but in sand it is tough. Set pavers pursuant to layout. Generously sweep silica sand on top of bricks to take up space between pavers.
Boris
"Sir, I may be drunk, but you're crazy, and I'll be sober tomorrow" -- WC Fields, "Its a Gift" 1927
Just a couple of tips for paver installation in frost-heave country, southern Ontario.
Excavate as requ'd for final grades desired, allowing for 1/4" final compaction, paver height, 2" underlayer, 8" sub-base.
Install a sub-base of min. 8" gran.a in 4" lifts over undisturbed earth, compacting each lift with a vibrating gas plate tamper.
For the final underlayer, install 2" of crushed limestone (aka stone dust, crusher dust). To establish the final grade, set up stringlines (use stacks of pavers to hold the stringline in place, raising and lowering by placing stonedust under, pounding the stack down, etc) offset above the base at 1/4" above the desired final height of the driveway/walkway finish (ie. one full paver height + 1/4" above desired final stonedust surface).
Set up one stringline down the middle of the driveway, one down each side (inset enough from the sides to pass a tamper alongside, between them and the lawn). Make sure that the stringlines describe a finished grade that has at least 2% drainage from the center to the sides, and along the length of the laneway. Make sure it drains away from the house. For less wide walkways use a stringline at either edge and drop the 2% to one side or the other.
Then use the stringlines to set straight pipes (could be conduit, gas pipe, as long as it is fairly sturdy and very straight, 2" dia. or less) exactly one paver height below the stringline. Set the pipes by pouring stonedust on them, raising them up and knocking them down, gauging their distance from the stringline with a tape. Once set, the tops of these pipes will be 1/4" higher than the desired final surface of your stonedust underlayer. Fill all areas of the driveway over the gran.a base with stonedust, roughly up to the top of the surface described by the pipes, grading loosely with a rake. Make sure not to accidentally move the pipes. Make sure the stone dust is packed tightly around the pipes, compressing it by foot, making sure not to accidentally raise the pipes above their set elevation. Always overlap ends of pipes side by side, to reduce the chance of butting an end of one when screeding.
Then take a two by four, long enough to span from one pipe to another with a few inches to spare at either end, and screed it across the top of the pipes- to do this you will have to get on your knees in the stonedust and pull the board (and hence the stonedust) towards you. May take a few passes before you can shuffle back and continue on. Helps to have some one behind you (actually, I suppose they are technically ahead of you) with a rake, pulling back the stonedust as it starts to build up, shovelling more in areas where the screed leaves a hole. Make sure your pants cover the top of your boots, or you will end up with boots full of stonedust in no time at all. Continue until you have screeded the entire surface of the driveway/ walkway. Once complete, the stonedust surface will be neat and clean with no visible waves.
Run the plate tamper over this stonedust surface to compact, again keeping a few inches away from the pipes so as not to raise them or accidentally knock them.
Your compacted surface will now be about 3/4 of an inch or so below the tops of the pipes.
Wheelbarrow and shovel in more stonedust to fill up the compacted stonedust surface back to the top of the pipes again. Screed the surface one more time as described above. It should be easier the second time because less material is involved.
Once the entire surface is finished, pull out the pipes and put them out of the way (on the lawn, in the truck), taking care to walk toe-heel-toe-heel in the holes left by the pipes only- do not walk on the finished surface. Once all pipes are removed, fill the pipe holes (more like troughs actually) by carrying spadefulls of stonedust down the pipeholes one at a time, compacted this fill by walking heel-toe-heel-toe over it. Do not disturb any of the rest of the surface.
Once the pipe holes have been filled, compacted by foot, and appear fairly level with the surrounding surfaces, walk back up a pipeholes line to its beginning with a 2'-0" two by four in hand. Crouch down and use the small board to carefully screed the stonedust level with the already screeded surfaces on either side. If you start to gather too much stonedust while screeding, remove it by flat shovel, taking care to walk only in the unscreeded pipehole areas. If you need to add some more stonedust because the screed leaves a hole, go and get a shovel full, and carefully top it up.
Do this with all lines of pipeholes and you they are in plane with the pipe-screeded surfaces.
Then lay your pavers, starting from the end nearest the pallettes of pavers, taking care to only walk on the pavers you've installed or on surrounding landscape as you work, do not walk on the screeded limestone.
As your work progresses, check with string lines to make sure your joints are lined up and not wandering to one side or the other.
With all the pavers in place (extend the body of your pavers and your sub-base past the final perimeter of the driveway/walkway) spread silica sand over the laid surface by tossing shovelfulls across and spreading them with stiff brooms and upside-down rakes. Run the plate tamper over the sanded pavers, while helpers push sand over the surface to ensure it is evenly distributed. Wear ear protection, as this is deafening. Continue tamping until all the joints are visibly filled.
Take chalk and mark out the inside edge of your borders. Trace it out just as you would like it to be c/w curves, etc.
Take a quick-cut saw (mixed gas hand held saw with circular blade- personally prefer Stihl models) with a full sized diamond blade, wear goggles, hearing protection and a mask, and follow the chalk line, scribing lightly into the surface along the marked line to a depth of about 1/4". If you have long straight runs, use a straight two by four as a straightedge to run the sawblade alongside. Align the two by four with the chalkline, and have a helper stand on the far end of it to hold it in place as you scribe your way towards him/her, always keeping at least one of your feet on the board to hold it in place at your end.
With the inside edge of your border thus incised into each brick, take chalk and mark x's on the undesired offcut side of each brick that is scribed so that the person cutting knows which is the good piece.
Keeping them in order, carefully lift each of the scribed bricks out, clean away the joint sand that comes free down to the compacted stonedust surface below. Do not disturb the compacted stonedust surface.
Keeping the bricks in order, cut them all the way through. This is most quickly done by cutting them with the quick cut saw on a piece of plywood in the middle of the driveway. Being a masonry blade, the diamond blade won't cut through wood easily (or boots, pants, etc) but will rather resist and burn the wood surface. Hold the saw in two hands, put a safety boot on the brick to hold it in place, and cut the offcut off by following the scribed mark. Angle the cut slightly in towards the piece to remain to prevent a gap between the cut edge and the border course. May sound scary, but as long as you have workboots, hearing/eye/lung protection in place, you will have to try pretty hard to hurt yourself with a quick cut that is fitted with a diamond blade. The spinning blade acts as a large gyroscope, steadying itself in mid-air. You will feel resistance every time you try to rotate it out of plane. Have a buddy bring you the bricks in ordered stacks, and return bricks once cut to their original locations. Arrange a system that all everyone's aware of, and that allows time between finishing a cut, and taking it away/delivering a new brick, all to make sure that no-one comes near the saw when its running. Also make sure that nothing and noone will be in the afterspray of the saw. Quick cuts can catch and throw a full bricks a fair distance if used carelessly.
Some people prefer to use tray mounted water saws to prevent dust (a handheld quickcut will raise an unbelievable amount of dust) but someone handy with a quick cut can do the same amount of work in less than half the time, setup and takedown not included.
With all the cuts put back in place, use full pavers as spacers to offset a flexible paving edge (I think there is one actually called pave-edge) the correct distance from the cut bricks. The paver edge restraints are usually held in place by long galvanized spikes driven by sledgehammer through holes in the edger into the earth. Fill between the cut edges and the edge restraint with a soldier course of full pavers. Cut wedges to fill gaps in curving portions of the soldier course as required. Sweep sand into the cracks till they are no longer visible. Fill topsoil between paver edge and lawn and seed or sod.
By scribing the bricks in place before removing and cutting them indivdually, you will ensure a single, continuous and fluid line in the border edge, once it is installed.
Follow this procedure, and it will give you excellent grades on the surface (no ponding) a well draining and well supported surface, unlikely to frost heave or sink.
Actually, when tamping the sand into the joints the first time, you will notice that, should you pass over any loose gran.a on the surface of the brick (from boots, barrows, etc) the gran.a will shatter under the tamper without affecting the brick or its grades.
If your brick is delivered in pallettes with individual rows banded with steel straps within the pallette, get a sturdy two wheel dolley c/w a piece of plywood cut about the size of the pallette's cross section. Once the over-all pallette straps are cut free, individual sections of brick that are banded can be picked up and run across the job by wedging the dolly's lip underneath a section, tightening the sections strap by wedging a piece of wood between it and the brick, and tilting the section of brick back till it slides onto the dolly, resting across the plywood and the base of the dolly.
You can move large amounts of brick very quickly doing this, with little effort.
Make sure you have a lot of water because it is dusty, thirsty, miserable work.
And make sure you have a cold beverage or two ready at sundown, because it is the hardest work on your back and knees that I know of.
If you are in a frost heave region, and if you undertake it as described, at least you won't have to do it twice.