Paving Installation Process

Paving installation process starts when you choose the paving brick and outline plan to do the work.

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Even if you want to install paving by yourself or you need a paving installation contractor, these are the steps.  You can apply these steps for driveways, for light cars as well as heavy cars.

First, measure the size of surface to fill in with paving brick and plan the work from that point.

Then mark out the outside area say with spray paint. Since there is need for some space to do work, you therefore need to leave a gap to allow for that, say 300 mm.

After that, add up the total area, and find out how many paving bricks you need. Regular shapes are easy as you can simply do length x width and get the area. If the shape is not regular, there are free software on the internet for that.

For a good figure of how many bricks, allow for edges, corners and arcs as some bricks will have to be cut off. After this you can have the total cost to buy the paving. If you are using a contractor, you can then compare figure on quote with yours. Pavers are sold per square meter, so it is easy to get the total cost of bricks.

After that, look at how the ground should slope. Water should drain away from the house and buildings, into storm water drain lines. This is now the design stage of the paving. A drawing of the design that shows how the final surface slopes, the total area and the full shape will make the job easy. We use that to adjust levels during paving construction.

There may be a need to install a new drain lines or pipes of your own. Such drains could have grids at the top for water to collect and drop into the drain. Especially if your ground is much higher than the outlet level of the drains which you need to link to. Moreover, in such cases, you have to look at the type of traffic that will use your paving. Light cars can use light designs and likewise heavy cars will need stronger grits for support.

Now we look at options for the brick to use. Choice will depend on use, cost and the final outlook that you want. To name just a few uses, paving can be for walkways, driveways, heavy cars, patios and swimming pool edges.

Flagstones

These are good for gardens, patios and pool surrounds. They are easy to shape and a good choice to bring out fine shapes. The price is a bit higher than other options.

Clay bricks

Although old fashioned, they are still on the market today even though their demand is now lower. Furthermore, they are cheap to install. They can be used for driveways, walkways and pool surrounds.

Cement bricks/pavers

Widely used, they cover a many uses – from driveways, walkways, patios to pool surrounds and more. Affordable and able to bring very good results in terms of strength and appeal.

Now that you have made a choice on paving brick, total area and slope design, you may start to prepare the ground.

Hold on, very important before you begin to dig is to locate any underground utility lines and facilities, such as electricity, water, telephone lines etc. and isolate for safety.

Now, first step is to remove bad soil if any. If there is grass, you need to dig it up and look closely at the soil under. In most cases, you will need to remove the top soil till you get to good soil that can firm up when you compact it. Then you will have to bring in quality soil to get to the right level that you have on design. Quality soil will give good strength when you compact it.

Additionally, you need to make sure that the final levels are correct and that water flows away from your house and building. For home driveways, you can apply a depth of 200 mm – 250 mm below the final level.

After you have dug and put in good soil, you can start to compact it. This is done either by hand stamper (if it’s a small area that will only support people walking) or a plate compactor (easy to use and easy to hire from a tool shop). After that, your base is now solid and will not give away under load.

The 200 mm  that we spoke of will allow for base and sub base as follows:

100 mm -150 mm sub-base, 40 mm sand bed and 50 mm block.

Flagstones need a 100 mm depth of cement to rest on, while other paving need about 200 mm of river sand to support bricks.

As you fill in your layers, you should be have the final profile in mind, so that layers will enable the final slope as per design. We compact ground for strength and to make sure that there are no gaps and voids. Therefore, you should be thorough when you compact ground.

Laying the paving

You can use a fish line to keep the final levels on design. Pavers are laid close to each other and as tight as possible for strength. Cutting of pavers at the edges is always a need that will give good appeal on edges. Use an angle grinder for this.

You can then grout all the surface after putting down the bricks.

Typically, grouting your average paving job needs a ‘dry grout’ which is a mix of plaster sand and cement.

Grout makes sure that pavers are firmly locked into place.