Building A Paver Walkway That Will Last.

hey guys today we're going to be doing a paper walkway i'm going to take you through show you step by step on how i do it so hopefully you can tackle this job at home save yourself some money with great results if you enjoy the video click on that red subscribe button right there in the right hand corner all right let's get at it [Music] how many of you guys got papers that look like this so the three main reasons that why pavers why patio stones go this way is because no edging and no compaction so they were just pretty much dug the sawed up place them down hoping for the best and this is what happens they they split apart they sink without the right material so here we are ripping up all those patio pavers we're gonna rip them up and redo it i like to dig down digging it up here i like to dig down about six seven inches about the depth of your shovel just take it down to you'll be able to tell once you uh once you dig all that top soil off you'll be able to tell when you hit that good compact ground it's uh yeah like i say about six inches take all that topsoil off get down to uh do a harder ground here's how you can test uh for compaction for for that ground is i usually just take like a 12 inch spike and if you have to hammer hammer that spike down into that ground you can't push it down by hand you gotta pretty much hammer it with that little sledge you know you're good to go so like i say yeah every ground is different but i usually go about six inches six seven inches i lay this crusher dust down it's it's like an angular crusher stone it jams together bites together good it's not like a pea stone pistol won't pack for you so you got to use this good angular crusher dust some guys use three quarter minus for a garage pad that's probably good but where this is just a walkway i'm gonna go with a crusher dust it it still takes a good bite i'm going to put the string line down and what this does for me is i'll follow that string line along that walkway and and see where i got to bring up that crusher dust just to to make it more even the whole way across so so i got a good even good even base of crusher dust before i start compacting i usually i usually make that about four or four and a half inches thick because when i always water it down before i come back to water down you get a better compaction and uh usually just thinks about a half an inch or more so i just kind of screwed it with this 2x4 just to take in all the indents one last final touch before i compact it just uh just to fill in the low spots and the divots does a good job it does a better job than just going with a hand rake that's for sure now i put the level on the 2x4 and just go along every every few feet i want to slope about a half a bubble so i'm sloping towards the road so the walkway won't cool up with water so there's the quebecer i bought at the hardware store it's about a 30 pound combat there wasn't a lot of money it's pretty cheap actually and if you don't mind the manual labor it's not long it does a good job compaction it doesn't take that long so like i say make sure you water it down you get a lot better compaction so i use this one inch outside diameter pvc pipe plastic pipe like i said it's one inch outside diameter you lay that down then you put your beach sand or really the finest sand you can get over top you screed it with that two by four lay that two by four on top of that one inch outside diameter pvc pipe that'll give you exactly one inch thickness of sand you don't want any more than one inch if you go any more than one inch you're going to get your pavers sinking in the corners when people walk on them and apply weight on the corner it'll sink so you just want that one inch what that one inch does it allows to give you a little work room to make sure each paver is perfectly lined up with the next one with a little tap of a rubber hammer or whatnot it's it's not too much and it's uh it's not too little it's just right it helps seat those pavers in good and tight like i say no more than one inch then after you pick that pipe up i just kind of fill in the spots a little bit with the leftover sand and i only i only do an eight foot section at a time and then i'll start laying my pavers patio stones uh i just i don't know i find it's better that way and then if you have any trouble you don't uh you don't have a whole bunch of sand down there you can like i say just do about eight feet at a time start laying pavers there's the edger i use there it's about uh one inch one inch one inch thick it's uh it's called the low pro edging it uh you can get the regular but the low pro is for the patio slabs which i'm using here they're only about an inch and a quarter inch and a half thick the pavers are four inches thick so if you get the patio slabs make sure you ask for the low pro that way there when you lay that low pro edging you won't see it it'll it'll be a little bit lower than the pavers and when you bury it with topsoil you won't see it but if you go with the regular you will see it and you'll see those black edges on on the outside edge so i'm just making sure the walkway is square of the house i squared off the foundation of the house put my line up my stakes measured each corner and very important when you lay that first layer those first three stones that i have down there now very important that you get those bang on because they're the ones that are starting you off so make sure they're lined up perfectly with that string you got them good and level right where you want them you don't want to get four or five stones ahead and then realize you're going off course and just makes a whole lot of a lot more work on yourself so like i say just make sure take the extra time to make sure they're good because the rest of it goes pretty fast once you get that first row started level straight the rest is just bang bang bang one after the other don't take long and each time you lay one down just give it a smack with that rubber hammer and it helps seat it in that one inch sand it you can you can level each stone exactly with the one that you just put before that because that one inch gives you that variance to to line everything up perfectly and it also when you compact those stones it also uh works that sand up from the bottom and the cracks to help tighten it up so yeah every time i lay one i uh i just give it a tap with a hammer like that and when you lay one of the stones make sure you put it up against the previous stone and then drop it don't drop it on the sand and push it up against the stone because you'll work that stone in between the two or the sand in between the two stones and you won't get a tight fit as you watch as i'm laying that i'll push it up against the stone and then drop it on the sand that gives you a tight fit you know like i say once you get it to that first row it's just one after the other then if you notice one is maybe you know an eighth of an inch higher than the other one quick snap smack with the hammer you it's you'd be surprised it uh it's actually great to work with that one inch one inch of sand it makes everything makes everything flow and makes everything nice and square and flat you don't get any pavers higher than the other like so it gives you that little bit of work room but it's not too much that when you walk on it because sand will not compact it you go you know you go two inches of sand you're gonna have issues so yeah we got the walkway all done there so now i'm just going to square the edges with that 2x4 just kind of drag it along the sand to make that sand nice and flat for when i put that plastic edging down that edgy comes i believe in six foot lengths runs around 12 bucks a piece so it's not bad it's a must when you're doing these walkways paver walkways it's a must to have that that stuff there will keep that tight it will last for years and the thing i like about this type of edging you see how bendable is like you can go you can build fire pits in a round circle whatever you want to build you can it'll it'll follow whatever whatever style paver you're building it's great stuff so i use uh i cut the video short here but i'll show you when i do the steps i i use 12 inch spikes i go about every second hole i pound them down with 12 inch spikes i'll show you here while i'm doing the steps so again i just use the pvc pipe one inch put a layer of sand down drop the stones on give them a top the rubber hammer set them in nice and tight now i'm placing this edging i cut a piece off to make it for the length of those three feet driving the 12-inch spikes down people say why don't you use galvanized spikes well i use the steel spikes because this you want this you want the spikes to rust because you ever seen a rusty nail they get all jagged sharp they they take a lot better bite in the ground they will last a lot longer and they will stay tight whenever i'm doing the walkway this is a three foot walkway each stone is a foot so i make sure i go four feet gives me a half inch on each side to lay those edging and then you don't have your edging up on the side and whatnot trying to trying to work with that so yeah so we're getting them all nailed down they were taking a good bite too it was really good hard ground i was happy about that like i say they they keep everything nice and tight well worth well worth the 12 dollars for for each strip so i think this walkway was around 32 feet you know just for the sake of cost i think the total cost was around 600 bucks to do this whole walkway doing it myself so just for the material so what i do after i didn't show in the video but after i get after you always put your edging down nail it down then you can put your sand on top of your your pavers spread it out with the broom get it swept into the cracks what you can then you tamp it that tamper helps vibrate that sand down in the cracks even tighter and spread out towards that edging those pavers will lock tight in that edging you can walk on those pavers you won't hear any rattling nothing's going to be loose just keep sweeping it do it three or four times pack it sweep it it will uh you'll be surprised it'll be singing tight so yeah hope you enjoyed the video hope you got some tips out of it to be able to do this do this stuff yourself at home and save yourself some money okay thanks again for watching [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Terry McGillicuddy

Views: 688,963

Keywords: #Save Money, Landscaping, Paver walkway, Do it Yourself, Step by step, Working Alone, Do it yourself, How to, Start to Finish

Id: qtWaG4THlzA

Length: 11min 39sec (699 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 12 2020