I am a home owner that is filling some of the space between my sidewalk and the curb with some pavers. Unfortunatly there is a city tree in the center and roots everywhere. I will end up with two 8’x6′ sections of pavers on each side of the tree about 6 ft away from the trunk.
Acording to the gents I buy pavers from I need to have 4″ of compacted base rock and a 1″ bed of course sand. The nice thing about this project is the curb and the sidewalk make it easy to screed it nice and flat.
The 1st thing I did is dig out 7.5″ deep 9’x6′. This leaves 6″ a side for paver retention. The curb and the sidewalk will retain the other two sides.
I could have paid $75/day for a plate compactor but since I am doing this myself I need to compact over severl days. So I decided to go with a hand tamper. My choices were an 8″x8″ or a 10″x10″. Since the 10″x10″ was only slightly heavier than the 8×8 i went with the 8×8 figuring I could do a better job with it.
So knowing the demensions of my compacted hole I went to my local materials place and asked for class 5 gravel and fines. They didn’t know it by that name so I ended up with base fill that they calculated how much I need.
I’ve been hand tamping 2″ at a time. I screed on 2″ then tamp it down. It tamps to 1.5″. Turns out I was short so I had to go back and have more delivered. This time I made all the calcs for volume and again relied on their conversion factor for tons/yard. I think their factor is about 30% low cause I ran out again. ahhhh!
Is there a way that I can tell if I am getting it compacted enough?
Since I am still 1/2″ shy of compacted gravel can I make it up in 1-1/2″ of sand or should I make another trip? For these small loads they want to charge me a premium delevery charge. $85 for 1200lb at 4mi. what a rip.
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I'd say your compacting is fine. Especially since the space between curb and sidewalk usually sees little or no foot traffic.
And given that your paver area has a concrete border, the extra 1/2" of sand shouldn't hurt anything.
Sounds like a nice project...buic
You've got it compacted enough, I'd say. You might want it slightly better compacted if you wanted a glass-smooth final product, but it doesn't sound like that's your goal.
You can make the half inch in sand, or you can buy bagged paver base at most big boxes. It's not brain surgery.
Thanks Dan, I went the BBS route and used 12 bags to finish off to the 4" level. Now I'm getting ready to lay down some pavers.
It turns out the pavers I'm using have a ridges on the sides so that they are meant to lay next to each other. Although they say 12x12, 12x6 and 6x6 they are actually 11-7/8 and 5-7/8 real dimensions. My space to fill is 72" long which is perfect for 12x12 and 6x6 pavers but means with the random pattern I've chosen but leaves quite a gap based on the pavers I have.
The random pattern using all three sizes means that I have to space the pavers with 1/8" for 5-7/8 edges and 1/4" for 11-3/4 ones. I'm afraid that will look funky.
The other option is to trim 1-1/2" paver strips to complete the last course which will look funky.
What is my best option at this point? Are there others?
Thanks
Border the area with the retangles, set the rest at a 45.
Of course, you'll need a saw.
Trying to space the pavers will be a PITA. You can pack them tight and then fill in around the edges with mortar. Of even fill in around the edges with pea gravel. Note that you can install plastic border strips to "constrain" the pavers before filling in the gravel, if the gap is wider than an inch or so. There are binders you can mix into or spray on the gravel to help keep it in place.The other option is to cut the pavers. If it were just a few you could score them with a masonry blade in your circ saw or angle grinder, then split with a brick chisel, but for as many as it sounds like you'll have to do it's probably better to rent a brick saw.
If your view never changes you're following the wrong leader
What I've seen done and what I have done myself is to sweep course, white sand into the spaces between pavers. Like someone else said, I think trying to maintain a space other than that provided by the little ridges on the pavers themselves would be really hard--could maybe use those X's you use in spacing tile, but I don't know how well they'd work.
I couldn't quite understand you spacing dilemma, but if you have too much space on curb side or sidewalk side, maybe those tar impregnated fiberboard expansion strips they use in sidewalks would work. (I don't think any kind of gravel would be small enough to get into those tiny crevices (between pavers), but may work if you have extra spaces on the sides betwen pavers and sidewalk or curb.)
Yeah, the pea gravel suggestion was for along the edges, not between pavers.
If your view never changes you're following the wrong leader
We just put in a driveway extension and sidewalk up to the front porch this summer using pavers. I think the guy I worked with even vibrated the sand between the pavers, running it over with a plate compactor. One crazy thing--he left two or three grade stakes in and covered them with the stone mix. But when I ran the compactor over them, they made ripples like a piling in water, so I could find them and pull them out.