One of our Professional Design Consultants will assist you with your design and plan in an effort to come up with a clear picture as to your overall vision and goals for this project. The design and diagram will determine the scope of the project. At this point we will be able to provide you with an accurate estimate in regards to your investment. We can continue to alter the scope until we meet your project needs. Once the design is finalized we will use the diagram to ascertain the appropriate quantities of material to order.
The Process
Before the demolition can commence, all utilities (electrical, gas, water, etc.) must be properly located to eliminate unnecessary problems.
A bob-cat (where applicable) will be used to demolish your existing hard-scape surface. In areas where the bob-cat cannot access, other demolition tools be used to remove the hard-scape. Saw-cutting may be necessary along areas where the foundation is protruding into the usable space in the driveway, patio, or pool deck areas.
In vehicular areas, we will excavate 13-1/2 inches from final grade and in pedestrian areas we will excavate 8-1/2 inches from final grade.
For the first 4 feet away from the house, we will want a 1/4 inch of fall per foot for the first four feet and 1/8 inch of fall per foot thereafter. This is to code and should be followed to create the necessary water-flow away from your house.
We will use a plate compactor to compact the sub-base. This is crucial, as we do not want to have any air gaps in our system. If you skip this step, it will lead to undulations later on.
Prior to the base preparation, we recommend that a geotextile fiber is installed which will inhibit the native soils(your dirt) from mixing with the Class II Road Base, which will be installed next. One of the main reasons pavers undulate and fail later down the line is when you skip this step. The fiber retains the integrity of the foundation and system and the foundation is vital to the longevity of the paver installation.
We will prepare 10 inches of Class II Road Base for the vehicular areas and 5 inches for the pedestrian areas. Once the base has been set, we will hose the base down, and compact it until we reach a compaction level of 95%. At this point if the bob-cat drives over the prepared base, you will not see any tires mark, as it is literally hard as a rock, which is exactly what you want.
We will screed 1 inch of sharp angled bedding sand over the entire base, which is specially designed for the pavers. This is not round beach sand that you would find at your local beaches. It is sharp and angular in design and locks into the paver joints.
Once the laying system has been completed, we will lay string lines out from your house so that we know we are laying our pavers properly to the design/plan.
Once the entire field of pavers has been laid, we will take the border stone of your choice and place it around the outside of the field. Next, we will take a marker (sharpie) and mark all the stones that are in the borders path. Once the stones have been marked, we will take them one at a time to the wet saw and cut each stone to perfection. Once they have been cut we will place the cut pavers back in their appropriate field location.
After all the borders have been cut, we will install the edging and secured with 10 inch steel spikes.
We will use the plate compactor at this point to compact the pavers down into the bedding sand, thus bringing the sand 1/4 inch up on the stone. At this point, the stones are now interlocked. We will continue to bring more and more sand and compact from top down to completely fill all the 1/16 inch paver joints.
Once the joints have been completely filled with the sand, we will start our clean-up process. All excess sand and debris will be removed and your paver project will be hosed off and ready to use immediately.
Once the paver project is completed, we will add a sealer. There are various types of sealers, including: joint stabilizer sealer, color enhancer sealer, wet look sealer, etc.; however, the most popular sealer is the joint stabilizer sealer. This particular sealer locks in the joints to help prevent weeds or any other growth from occurring between the pavers. It also helps with inhibiting staining, however, it does not eliminate all stains.