- Working time: 1 to 2 days
- Total time: 4 to 5 days
- Skill level: Intermediate
- Project cost: $400 to $800
Building a paver patio is one of the easiest, least expensive, and most DIY-friendly ways to create a solid, hardscaped patio floor, plus it could add charm to your backyard. Patio pavers—squares or rectangles of cured concrete—replace the slow and cumbersome step of pouring wet concrete into wooden forms.
You just need to lay small, manageable concrete pavers on top of a drainable base of gravel and sand and you’re done—no curing time. Adding edging material holds everything in and lends a finishing touch.
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When to Install a Paver Patio
Make sure that you can devote several continuous days to the project. If you need to cut away turf, this is best done in warm weather and when the turf is dry or slightly damp.
Safety Considerations
Building a paver patio is hard physical work, so take precautions to avoid injuring yourself when lifting. Lift from the legs, not the back. Carry as much of the materials with the wheelbarrow rather than by hand. Have the hauling company deliver the materials as close as possible to the patio site.
Tools
- Wheelbarrow
- Shovel
- Turf shovel
- Hammer
- Bubble level
- Scrap two-by-four
- Steel ground tamper
- Garden rake
- Push broom
Materials
- Concrete pavers
- Plastic edging material
- Bulk rock base material (for paving)
- Bulk coarse bedding sand
- Bag of fine sand
- Garden hose attached to water source
- Wood stakes
- Twine or string
- 2 PVC or metal pipes (1-inch diameter)
Instructions
1. Plan Paver Size
Choose a patio size that you can comfortably build over several days or a week—often, around 100 to 150 square feet. One helpful tip is to create a size that allows you to use full-size patio pavers, without cutting the pavers. Nudging a patio larger or smaller by one row of pavers eliminates the need to cut pavers with a concrete saw.
2. Choose Patio Location
Choose an area for the paver patio that is level or has a slight slope to promote water drainage. A sloped area will naturally move water away or you can build a slope into the base materials. Make sure that the site does not slope toward the house.
Consider trees, shading and sun, as well as the positions of the sun throughout all seasons of the year.
3. Mark Utilities
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Call 8-1-1 to be connected to your local utilities marking service. Allow at least two or three weeks for a technician to visit your property to mark the location of vital underground services.
4. Order Materials
Use your plan to calculate the amount of pavers and base materials to order. Measure the width and length of the patio to arrive at the area. So, a space 10 feet wide by 15 feet long is 150 square feet. Add 10% to allow for wastage. Joints can be as wide as 1/2-inch.
Or you may choose to press the pavers tightly against each other. The pavers will create micro-joints nearly invisible to the eye but still large enough to allow for some locking sand to be swept in them.
5. Mark Layout
Pound wooden stakes at each of the four corners of the layout. Run taut mason’s line, string or twine between the stakes.
6. Remove Turf
If turf needs to be removed, use the turfing shovel to cut it out in strips about 1-foot-wide by 3 feet long. Roll up the strips and use them to patch bare parts of the lawn or compost them.
7. Dig Out Area
Dig down about 5 inches from the level of the surrounding turf. This will allow the top of the pavers to be just about ground-level: 4 inches of base, 1 inch of sand and 1-inch-thick pavers.
8. Tamp Down Area
Screed the soil with the scrap two-by-four, then firmly tamp down the soil with the ground tamper tool.
9. Install Gravel Base
Fill the wheelbarrow with base materials and drop them onto the patio site. After every two loads, spread out the materials with the rake. Even the materials across the entire site. Lightly spray with water from the garden hose to keep down dust.
10. Add Slope (Optional)
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If you need to add a slope to the site, make sure that it drops by 1/2-inch to 1-inch vertically for every 4 to 8 horizontal feet. Finish by tamping down, then screeding out the base materials.
11. Add Edging Material
Edge restraint gives the paver patio a finished look, plus it helps to hold in the materials. Stake in the edge restraint within the perimeter of the patio site.
12. Add Layer of Sand
Use the wheelbarrow to dump loads of coarse bedding sand on top of the base material. Lay down about 1 inch of sand.
A trick for easily keeping the sand at 1-inch depth is to lay down two parallel PVC or steel plumbing pipes that are 1-inch in outside diameter. As you screed across the sand with the two-by-four, the pipes will regulate the depth of the sand. When finished, gently remove the pipes.
13. Lay Pavers
Lay the pavers on the sand. Avoid walking across the sand by laying the pavers from an outside edge toward the inside. After each completed row, tamp down the pavers. Use an intervening scrap of wood to avoid cracking the pavers.
14. Sweep in Sand
Toss two or three handfuls of sand across the surface. Sweep the sand across the pavers until all of the joints are full. Walk on the pavers several times, then sand and sweep the pavers again. Over the next week or two, keep the sand nearby to add sand and sweep until the pavers no longer shift underfoot.
When to Call a Pro
Materials are heavy, difficult to transport and impracticable to purchase in bagged quantities. So, it’s best to have the pavers, sand and gravel delivered by the supplier or by a bulk materials hauler.
Your physical condition and the availability of assistants affects the size of the paver patio that you can reasonably build. Generally, paver patios over 100 to 150 square feet become more difficult to build and may require the help of a professional landscaping company.
Source: https://gardencourte.com
Categories: Outdoor
