When screeding, you’ll want to first lay a few 1” outside diameter screed bars down on your compacted base, make sure they’re level and then bring in your sand. To properly install bedding sand, you apply a process called screeding where you lay and level your bedding sand. However, if you install the bedding sand improperly, you’ll leave dips or voids that show in the final product. Bedding sand helps your stones settle firmly into the base and stay-in-place it also serves as a leveling layer to even out any minor discrepancies in the gravel base and the manufactured product. Your bedding sand is a crucial aspect of your entire hardscape. The smaller compactors that most people can readily obtain, like the one shown above, require two people to pick it up, therefore it should not be used to compact more than 2″ at a time. You’ll want to use a steel tamper for small projects and a gas plate compactor for more extensive patios, driveways, and walkways.Ī general rule of thumb is that a steel plate compactor can compact about as many inches of gravel as it takes people to pick it up. The best practice is to compact your gravel base, in both directions, with a steel tamper or a plate compactor 2″ at a time until you’ve achieved the right thickness. In other words, a bumpy, uneven base will produce bumpy, uneven pavers. If you fail to compact, you’ll experience sunken or raised pavers. You accomplish this kind of precision by properly compacting your base and your pavers. Not compacting the baseīefore laying bedding sand or pavers, your gravel base needs to be flat and firm, without any bellies or rises of more than 1/8″. The general rule is to add an extra 2–4″ to your gravel base if you live in colder climates with continually wet or weak soils. We recommend that you excavate enough dirt to lay a proper gravel base 4” for common foot traffic areas and 6–10″ for driveways and residential parking lots. However, gravel is cheap insurance to protect and preserve your pavers. When you read our recommendations for laying a base, you may think to yourself, “That’s a lot of digging!” The truth is, yes, it certainly is. The second most common mistake is not digging a deep enough area for the base. If you try to replace either of these aggregates with dirt, it won’t be long before you have to tear it all up and start from scratch. After you lay gravel, you’ll need to spread a smooth layer of concrete sand for your pavers to settle in and stay. Use road base gravel so that you get the right mix of fine and coarse aggregates for the best compaction. That’s why you’ll need to lay a substantial gravel base on top of your dirt. The principle to remember is this: your pavers are only as stable as the base they’re sitting on. However, if you properly lay a gravel base, you’ll essentially eliminate settling. This becomes an issue because, if you backfill with 10″ of dirt, your pavers will settle around 3″ over time. That means, if you backfill with dirt, your hardscape will settle 30%. Here’s why: dirt shrinks by 30% when compacted. Instead of having a smooth surface, you’ll have a bumpy, uneven surface. If you use dirt as your backfill or base, your pavers will sink, rotate, and separate. That’s why we’ve put together a series of paver installation video tutorials on almost every aspect of DIY hardscaping-from How to Build a Circle Patio to How to Build a Retaining Wall and so much more.īefore you kick off your first (or next) hardscape project, please take a look at our list below and make sure you avoid any of these all-too-common mistakes. We wrote this article to help save you the headaches most people encounter while you’re installing hardscape.Īt Western Interlock, we aim to help you take the hard out of hardscaping. The famed American basketball coach, John Wooden, once said, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” The truth is, most people jump into paver installation without knowing what they’re getting into-then they make mistakes or take shortcuts that cost them a lot of time and money down the road.
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