Adding a patio or walkway to your home is a great way to personalize your landscape and extend your living space to the outdoors. Check out these 3 steps below: planning, excavating and installing the pavers!
Image Source: Flickr.com
Planning
A good plan is essential to a successful paver project. Think about where you want your path, driveway, or patio, and then use graph paper to make a scaled drawing of the immediate area. Draw in your paver project. You’ll have to play around with your design a bit, so be sure to use pencil and keep your drawing neat. Your project will need to have adequate drainage if you want it to be safe and durable. You’ll also want to make sure that it slopes away from your house and other structures. To ensure adequate drainage, you should have a slope of at least 1/8″ per linear foot (1/4″ slope per linear foot is often recommended). Source: wikiHow
Excavating
Keeping in mind the needed slope, now is the time to decide the finished height of the project.
- Use the bottom of a door or any permanent structure that abuts the project as a reference.
- Place stakes at varying intervals along the outline of the project.
- Take a long 2 x 4 and run the board from the abutting structure to a stake. After checking to make sure the board is level, mark the stake at that point, and then make another mark further down the stake based on the determined slope.
- Run strings, tied to the stakes, across the length of the site to indicate the desired finished height.
To lay an adequate amount of crushed aggregate stone base, bedding sand and pavers, excavate the site well below the desired surface height of the project to allow for the base and sand layers. Simply calculate the thickness of the base, sand and paver layers to determine the depth.
After excavating the site, compact the soil with a plate compactor to prepare the surface for the aggregate base. Remove any standing water, rocks or other protrusions. Any bump or depression at this or any level will become visible in the finished project.
If the soil is clay, place a geotextile layer over the exposed soil and up the sides of the excavated area. This will provide additional stability for the base. Source: Grounds-Mag
Installing the Pavers
Lay the pavers down with the rough surface facing upward. This will give the courtyard more of a natural stone look. Place a straight edge along the length of the pavers just laid. By tapping gently with a rubber mallet, you are able to keep the pavers nice and flat.
- Continue screeding the sand bed one section at a time before laying the next area of pavers. Once laid, the pavers provide an excellent area to work without upsetting the newly screeded sand bed.
- Continue screeding and laying pavers, leaving the area for the fountain open.
- Position four cinderblocks where the fountain base will sit, making sure they are level. These foundation blocks will help distribute the weight of the fountain and prevent uneven sinking or wobbling. Using a hammer and cold chisel, score the pavers along the line. If there are large areas where pavers need to be cut to size, a more modern technique can be used with a diamond blade wet saw.
- Add a small DIY restraining wall along the flowerbeds burring the pavers in an upright position. This is an inexpensive, effective and attractive way to keep dirt and water from spilling over into the courtyard. Source: DIYNetwork
Contact:
Kerrisdale Roofing & Drains
8279 Ross St, Vancouver, BC V5X 4W1
(604) 360-2114
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