If there's a more durable, better-looking alternative to pathways paved with concrete brick, I've never seen it. Pavers, as they're called in the trade, offer benefits you won't find in competing options. Besides the fact that they look great, and go down easily, paver installations can be amazingly durable if they're built right. And this is where you come in. Whether you do the sweating yourself, or plan to hire someone else to do that for you, it's crucial to know what's involved in a first-class installation. And that kind of know-how is what you'll find here.
Paver pathways look simple enough when you're walking on them, but their legendary durability depends on three things happening below the surface: a fully compacted foundation trench; a border of plastic containment edging; and a 1 inch-thick layer of moist bedding sand. If your pathway will only ever carry foot traffic, then start with an 8-inch deep trench. This allows room for 4 or 5 inches of finely crushed, compacted stone screenings, with bedding sand on top of that and about 2 inches left over for the thickness of the pavers themselves. If your path is near a driveway, it runs the risk of being driven over now and then. Consider increasing the depth of the trench to 12 inches in areas where vehicle traffic might be involved. Fill this increased depth with more compacted stone screenings for a firm base.
Unless your installation is tiny, and the soil sandy, you'll probably need mechanical help digging the foundation trench. And the best machine to hire for this is a micro-excavator. These look like their full-size cousins, but are less than one-quarter the size, and are highly maneuverable in tight places. The best also have rubber tracks that won't mar lawns or driveways.
Before you break sod, you'll need to know where to dig. And for this, you can't beat string tied to some 12-inch long spikes hammered into the earth. This approach works fine for creating straight lines. A garden hose laid on the ground is the best way to mark curves. Since the purpose of these lines is to guide the excavation of the foundation trench, the sides must be one foot farther apart than the final pathway width. This creates a foundation trench wide enough to support the all-important plastic edge guides that I'll tell you about later. Lay some pavers out on the ground temporarily in the pattern you want, and then measure the group to determine the width of the finished project for layout purposes. When your strings are up and tight, follow them as a guide for a swath of white or yellow spray paint applied directly to the ground. Remove the strings (or garden hose) afterwards so they don't get tangled up in the excavator.
Screenings is the trade name for a crushed limestone by-product that's my choice for paver installations. The largest particles are no bigger than about 1/4-inch across, with fine limestone dust in the mix. Dust is good in this case because it helps ensure rock-solid results by encouraging compaction -- the key requirement for any durable paver installation. The purpose of the compacted foundation layer isn't to get down below the frost line and prevent heaving. It would take at least a 3 or 4-foot deep trench for that, and since pavers can handle some seasonal frost movement, there's no need to go to all that trouble. No, the role of the foundation layer is to prevent settling and shifting of the bricks after installation. That's why it must be mechanically compacted. Don't even think about installing pavers without a gas-powered compactor at your disposal. Settling will occur for sure on any kind of fresh fill. As the foundation trench reaches final depth, move in with wheelbarrow loads of fine aggregate. Dump it, rake it around, but apply no more than a 4-inch depth of aggregate in any one spot before firing up the compactor and pummeling the fill down. Ignore this advice and you could still have settling since the compaction action might not penetrate all the way through the loose layer if it's too thick. Four passes of the compactor over each 4 inch-thick layer -- two passes each way -- does a good job. Keep adding, raking and compacting the screenings until you're within an inch of the finished height of the foundation layer. Add the final layer of screenings with a trowel, using a length of wood for smoothing to finished height. The next step in the process involves plastic edge guides, another key feature of the best paver installations. These support the outer bricks invisibly after backfilling, keeping them tightly contained. Edge guides also make it easy to smooth the bedding sand evenly before setting the pavers in place. Some people install pavers without this edging, but the benefits are so great, and cost so low, that there's no reason to omit them.
There are several brands of plastic paver edging. Most are secured with 10 or 12-inch spikes driven into the soil. Begin by installing edging along one side of your project, following a taut string to ensure the edging is straight where it should be. Hammer in only every third spike for now, so you've got some leeway to adjust the edging strips after pavers are sitting between them. Although you could use a measuring tape to position the second side of the edging strip, there's a better way. Cut a 1x2 piece of wood to the same length as the width of the group of pavers you test-fitted earlier. This is your measuring stick. Just lay it on the ground, one end tight to the already-installed plastic edging. Lay down edging along the second side, bring it tight to the other end of the measuring stick, then spike it down in every third hole.
As you install the edging strips, place a level across the two sides to make sure you're maintaining an even keel. For reasons you'll see, the up-and-down position of the edging translates directly to the position of the pavers. A dip or rise on one side of the edging means a dip or rise in the bricks. You can fine-tune edging altitude by adding or removing small amounts of fine aggregate directly underneath. Tweak, check and re-tweak until the edging is perfectly straight and level.
Sand is the ideal bedding material for brick pavers, and now's the time to lay it on. Most plastic edging is designed to accommodate a 1-inch deep layer of sand, while still sticking up high enough to support the outer edges of the pavers. And when you're dealing with pathways, the secret is another wooden tool you make yourself. Grab a 2x4 and cut it 3 inches longer than the distance between the plastic edging strips. Notch the ends of the stick so it's bottom edge nestles down between the edging, about 1/2-inch lower than the top. The wood rides along the plastic edging, yet extends down between them to smooth the sand. Shovel small amounts of sand between the plastic edging strips, level it with several passes of your notched 2x4, then add and smooth again until you've got a level layer. For best results, moisten this sand, then hand-tamp it with a shop-built wooden tool, like the one shown here. Tamping lowers the level of sand, as you'd expect, so add more, smooth and tamp some more.
Installation of the pavers comes next and the job goes quickly. Set some bricks along both sides of the installation, tight to the plastic edging, tamp them in place with a few whacks from a rubber mallet, the fill the space between them with more pavers. As you work, you'll usually find the edging slightly too tight or too loose around the pavers. That's okay, though, because you can fine-tune the location of edging around the pavers as you add the anchoring spikes you left out earlier.
Finish up by troweling in some top soil almost up to the top of the pavers, covering the plastic edge guides along the path as you do. All that remains is to cast shovelfuls of sand all over the installation (the drier the better), then fire up the compactor again and take several passes over the whole thing. This firms the pavers by nestling them deeper into the bedding sand and by jiggling the loose sand down into the cracks. Hose the pathway down, then sweep it off when dry. You might as well get used to what you see because it's going to be around for a long, long time.
Paver pathways look simple enough when you're walking on them, but their legendary durability depends on three things happening below the surface: a fully compacted foundation trench; a border of plastic containment edging; and a 1 inch-thick layer of moist bedding sand. If your pathway will only ever carry foot traffic, then start with an 8-inch deep trench. This allows room for 4 or 5 inches of finely crushed, compacted stone screenings, with bedding sand on top of that and about 2 inches left over for the thickness of the pavers themselves. If your path is near a driveway, it runs the risk of being driven over now and then. Consider increasing the depth of the trench to 12 inches in areas where vehicle traffic might be involved. Fill this increased depth with more compacted stone screenings for a firm base.
Unless your installation is tiny, and the soil sandy, you'll probably need mechanical help digging the foundation trench. And the best machine to hire for this is a micro-excavator. These look like their full-size cousins, but are less than one-quarter the size, and are highly maneuverable in tight places. The best also have rubber tracks that won't mar lawns or driveways.
Before you break sod, you'll need to know where to dig. And for this, you can't beat string tied to some 12-inch long spikes hammered into the earth. This approach works fine for creating straight lines. A garden hose laid on the ground is the best way to mark curves. Since the purpose of these lines is to guide the excavation of the foundation trench, the sides must be one foot farther apart than the final pathway width. This creates a foundation trench wide enough to support the all-important plastic edge guides that I'll tell you about later. Lay some pavers out on the ground temporarily in the pattern you want, and then measure the group to determine the width of the finished project for layout purposes. When your strings are up and tight, follow them as a guide for a swath of white or yellow spray paint applied directly to the ground. Remove the strings (or garden hose) afterwards so they don't get tangled up in the excavator.
Screenings is the trade name for a crushed limestone by-product that's my choice for paver installations. The largest particles are no bigger than about 1/4-inch across, with fine limestone dust in the mix. Dust is good in this case because it helps ensure rock-solid results by encouraging compaction -- the key requirement for any durable paver installation. The purpose of the compacted foundation layer isn't to get down below the frost line and prevent heaving. It would take at least a 3 or 4-foot deep trench for that, and since pavers can handle some seasonal frost movement, there's no need to go to all that trouble. No, the role of the foundation layer is to prevent settling and shifting of the bricks after installation. That's why it must be mechanically compacted. Don't even think about installing pavers without a gas-powered compactor at your disposal. Settling will occur for sure on any kind of fresh fill. As the foundation trench reaches final depth, move in with wheelbarrow loads of fine aggregate. Dump it, rake it around, but apply no more than a 4-inch depth of aggregate in any one spot before firing up the compactor and pummeling the fill down. Ignore this advice and you could still have settling since the compaction action might not penetrate all the way through the loose layer if it's too thick. Four passes of the compactor over each 4 inch-thick layer -- two passes each way -- does a good job. Keep adding, raking and compacting the screenings until you're within an inch of the finished height of the foundation layer. Add the final layer of screenings with a trowel, using a length of wood for smoothing to finished height. The next step in the process involves plastic edge guides, another key feature of the best paver installations. These support the outer bricks invisibly after backfilling, keeping them tightly contained. Edge guides also make it easy to smooth the bedding sand evenly before setting the pavers in place. Some people install pavers without this edging, but the benefits are so great, and cost so low, that there's no reason to omit them.
There are several brands of plastic paver edging. Most are secured with 10 or 12-inch spikes driven into the soil. Begin by installing edging along one side of your project, following a taut string to ensure the edging is straight where it should be. Hammer in only every third spike for now, so you've got some leeway to adjust the edging strips after pavers are sitting between them. Although you could use a measuring tape to position the second side of the edging strip, there's a better way. Cut a 1x2 piece of wood to the same length as the width of the group of pavers you test-fitted earlier. This is your measuring stick. Just lay it on the ground, one end tight to the already-installed plastic edging. Lay down edging along the second side, bring it tight to the other end of the measuring stick, then spike it down in every third hole.
As you install the edging strips, place a level across the two sides to make sure you're maintaining an even keel. For reasons you'll see, the up-and-down position of the edging translates directly to the position of the pavers. A dip or rise on one side of the edging means a dip or rise in the bricks. You can fine-tune edging altitude by adding or removing small amounts of fine aggregate directly underneath. Tweak, check and re-tweak until the edging is perfectly straight and level.
Sand is the ideal bedding material for brick pavers, and now's the time to lay it on. Most plastic edging is designed to accommodate a 1-inch deep layer of sand, while still sticking up high enough to support the outer edges of the pavers. And when you're dealing with pathways, the secret is another wooden tool you make yourself. Grab a 2x4 and cut it 3 inches longer than the distance between the plastic edging strips. Notch the ends of the stick so it's bottom edge nestles down between the edging, about 1/2-inch lower than the top. The wood rides along the plastic edging, yet extends down between them to smooth the sand. Shovel small amounts of sand between the plastic edging strips, level it with several passes of your notched 2x4, then add and smooth again until you've got a level layer. For best results, moisten this sand, then hand-tamp it with a shop-built wooden tool, like the one shown here. Tamping lowers the level of sand, as you'd expect, so add more, smooth and tamp some more.
Installation of the pavers comes next and the job goes quickly. Set some bricks along both sides of the installation, tight to the plastic edging, tamp them in place with a few whacks from a rubber mallet, the fill the space between them with more pavers. As you work, you'll usually find the edging slightly too tight or too loose around the pavers. That's okay, though, because you can fine-tune the location of edging around the pavers as you add the anchoring spikes you left out earlier.
Finish up by troweling in some top soil almost up to the top of the pavers, covering the plastic edge guides along the path as you do. All that remains is to cast shovelfuls of sand all over the installation (the drier the better), then fire up the compactor again and take several passes over the whole thing. This firms the pavers by nestling them deeper into the bedding sand and by jiggling the loose sand down into the cracks. Hose the pathway down, then sweep it off when dry. You might as well get used to what you see because it's going to be around for a long, long time.
