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Some seem to think that installing pavestones is a simple process, and many home owners attempt the installations themselves, and it doesn’t always go as planned. A customer had call us about a year and a half ago looking for a pavestone estimate. He was pretty eager to speed up the process, so I went out to his house that afternoon to see what he was looking for. As soon as set sight on his patio I was wandering what was going on. The existing patio was torn out and there were large piles of dirt spotted around. When I rang the doorbell , a young man with a new cast and crutches answered. When I asked what happened to his leg, he simply pointed to the dirt mounds in his patio and said “that happened”. He tried doing the demolition on his patio, getting rready to do the installation himself, and in the process, he got caught in his excavation tracks and broke his leg.
The point of that story is that installing pavestones is not only an art, but it is extremely laborious. standard paving stones are 60mm thick – so you have a total excavation depth of 7.5 inches, minimum. An average 1,100 square foot pavestone installation would require excavation of 26 cubic yards of existing concrete, dirt etc., which would take about 4 dump trucks. You would import 15 cubic yards of base and another 4 yards of sand. Is this still sounding like a weekend project to you? A good pavestone installation (in southern California) requires a sub-base makeup of a minimum of 4 inches compacted Class II road base (or more depending on what the soils) and one inch of washed masonry sand.
Besides the physical demands, skill is also necessary. While it takes only modest skills to cut a stone or lay a simple pavestone pattern, it takes a skilled craftsman to create a flight of steps or banding that meanders through a driveway, patio or walkway. One thing is always for certain, there are many contractors (some licensed and some unlicensed) that bid low and then deliver a poor installation. There is a reason every market has an average price range. There is a goood explanation for this, and it’s because it costs and certain amount to do the job and then a certain amount to pay for other business expenses (overhead). Depending on the overhead you will see some slight variances in price. When you see a thirty to forty percent difference in price something is wrong. You must make sure each contractor is quoting you on the same pavestone, the same installation process, and the same base / sand materials. This often explains dramatic differences in price. Like I said, depending on your expectations of how you want your pavestone installation to look like in the end or how long you want your pavers to hold up against traffic will determine if you should hire a professional installation company, or take on the task yourself.

Filed under: Design, Garden, Home Improvement, Outdoor
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