| Paver
Patios | |||
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 Using
concrete pavers for patios, sidewalks, and driveways is becoming more and more
popular in the United States. Here are the steps to follow to get a solid paver project:
Before you start a paver project, call your utility company and have all the underground pipes and wires marked. Choosing a Design One of the great things about pavers is that they come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. This gives you many different options for your design.
You'll probably have grass that needs to be removed. You can do this pretty easily
with a sod cutter.
Then you need to dig down to a point where you want your base to start.
For this patio project, we dug down seven inches. That was to allow for a four
inch base, a layer of sand, and the pavers.
The digging process you use is called skimming. This is where you try not to disturb
the dirt at the bottom, but just skim the top. If you have loose dirt at the bottom,
it'll settle and you might end up with a dip in the patio.
For our patio we also sloped the base away from the house one inch for every
four feet. This will help drainage. You can do this work by hand, but if you have a large area you might want to consider having a subcontractor do the work with a Bobcat.
Preparing for the Base Material
Mark along side the house the height for the base material. Make sure this line extends beyond the house so you can still see it when it gets covered up with base material. Before
spreading out the main load of base material, it's a good idea to put down what's
called "geotextile fabric." This will help hold up the base and pavers if there's
any movement in the soil under the fabric. The fabric should go up the side of the excavation and run a little bit up the side of the house, this will help protect the siding.
The
base material we used was a crushed limestone called "class two." In some areas
it's called "three-quarter minus", AB3, Granular type 2, or 21A. The base material needs to be moist. One way you can tell is to pick up a handful and squeeze it. If it holds together in a solid clump, it's just right.
It works best to put down only half of the base material at a time, and compact
it after each layer. In our case, two three-inch layers compacted down to the
four inches of base we needed.
Keep the compactor running at full throttle. If you slow it down even a little,
you reduce the effect a lot. Let the machine pull itself forward, you shouldn't
have to push it to make it move.
First run the compactor around the edges of the area twice. Then start on the
low side and work across the grade, moving uphill. Then change directions 90 degrees
and start going up and down. Next, do a diagonal pass. Then repeat the whole process
again.
If there are areas you can't reach with the big compactor, you'll have to compact
them by hand. One way is to use the end of a sledge hammer. After compacting each layer check for flatness and for the proper grade. You'll probably have to do some scraping, filling, and more compacting to fine tune everything.
To draw the end line, we measure out from the house the length of the patio on
both sides. Then we snap a chalk line between the two marks to give us the bottom
of the patio. Now we need to draw a line perpendicular to this end line. Here's one way to do this
We joined the sections with a connector pipe, and used 10-inch spikes to hold
the edging in place. Sometimes it works best to put in all the edging right away. In our project, we just installed the edging for the end at this point.
We lined up one-inch thick pipes to give us our 1-inch layer. We filled sand in between the pipes, then screeded it off level with the tops of the pipes. In places where you can't use a screed, it's okay to use a trowel to smooth it out.
We set our pavers in two sections: the big patio area first, and then the sidewalk
area. We started at the far end and worked our way up toward the house.
We've got a row of red pavers in what's called a "soldier course" along the outside
edge of the patio. So those were the first ones we set in.
We started the first two on either side of the line and worked out from there. You just set the pavers gently into the sand. Don't slide them in from the side, don't twist them, don't push them down.
There are several different tools you can use to cut pavers. The most common is
a mechanical splitter. However, a splitter leaves a slightly uneven cut.
To get a cleaner cut, you need to use a heavy duty power miter saw. The pros use
a wet saw that's washed with water to keep the heat and dust down.
The main part of our patio was a herringbone pattern. After the pavers were set, we put the edging on the sides. If we had installed the edging earlier, we would probably have had to cut all the pavers on the sides to fit.
Next
you fill the joints with sand from above. And this is what makes a patio incredibly
strong.
You should be able to use the same type of coarse washed concrete sand as you
did for the bedding layer. However, you need the sand to be pretty dry.
The process is to spread sand with a broom, run the compactor over the pavers,
spread some more sand, compact, and so on, until the joints are filled. This process
will make for a very solid paver surface. After your paver project is complete you have the option to seal the pavers. Sealing will bring out the colors of the pavers and protect them from stain, but you will have to reseal them every few years. | |||
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More How-To Information: | |||
First you need to stake out the area for your project. You can do this with stakes
and strings.
Once
your excavation is all flat and at the slope you want, you're ready for the base
material.
You
can get a compactor at a rental store, you need a 4 or 5-horsepower compactor.
Anything less won't do the job.
Before installing your edge restraint you need to figure out your end line for
the patio and a center reference line.
For our paver project, we used a PVC edge restraint that's designed specifically
for interlocking pavers.
We used about two cubic yards of sand to make a one-inch bedding layer over the
whole patio. You need special sand for your bedding layer; ours was coarse washed
concrete sand.
Resnap your center perpendicular line before starting the pavers..
Our
general pattern is to set the pavers in sort of a pyramid, centered on our reference
chalkline. Adjust the pavers every few to keep them straight. 
Now
run the compactor over the pavers. This starts the process of locking everything
in place. The compactor is pressing the pavers down, evening out the tops of the
pavers, and forcing some of the sand up into joints from underneath.