Price: $11 per SF relay/ $25 per SF new base and pavers
Time: 80 SF per man/day
Tools:
gloves, knee pads, hearing protection, safety glasses
4″ SS drywall knife
steel concrete trowels
several 5 gallon buckets
optional 3/4″ pvc conduit
optional 2×4 lumber
spade
scoop shovel
wheelbarrow
optional brick lift
regular and push brooms
vibrating plate compactor, hopefully with forwards and reverse
Materials:
2RC gravel base
DER sand or rock dust
yellow or polymeric sand
heavy duty landscaping fabric
pavers
edging strips
12″ barn spikes
Process:
1.Assemble your tools and make sure you are within budget
2.Blow your work area clean.
3.If this is an existing patio, pry up the pavers and clean them with a 4″ SS drywall knife.
4.Stack your materials to one side.
5.Compact your base. If this is new construction, dig out the topsoil, backfill with subsoil up to 7″ of the surface, fill with 6″ of 2RC, and compact the area with a plate compactor.
6.Lay out your heavy duty landscape fabric, (not just black shade cloth.)
7. Spread an additional 1″ of DER sand/ lime stone dust onto your landscape fabric. You can use pvc conduit rails and a piece of 2×4″ lumber to make a straight and smooth surface. Concrete trowel work great to smooth the stone dust.
8.Start laying out your preferred paver pattern. There are ways to measure and project patterns, but often I end up tweaking them a bit.
9.In this case I used additional brick pavers to tighten up the pattern for a more durable and formal look.
10. Spread out either yellow or polymeric sand and sweep it into the paver joints. Lime stone rock dust does not seem to support moss growth very well, but maybe you don’t want moss…
11.Sweep the patio clean and put your tools away.
