How to Build a Patio - An easy Do it Yourself Project

[Music] today we're giving you some professional tips and techniques to help you build an amazing backyard patio of your own and it's all about the base and nothing to do with the bricks this means we're building a cutless PA patio and we're going to show you how to do the same so let's get it divide the base into three distinct categories the first category is what we call the subbase and that is the raw soil how to prepare that what to look for and what you're going to need to know to make sure that when you lay your patio now it looks the same 10 years from now the second category is what we call the imported base material and that's what you use to separate the subbase from your pavers and the third category of Base material is your sand base or your screed rail there may be a little bit of controversy on this last Point let's look at the subbase material or the raw soil this is the most critical element to get right when you're installing your base because if your subbase material goes wrong your patio can't help but fail so how do you know if you're working on good sub based material here's a little tip to let you know if you've got good subbed material take a spike and start pounding it in if you can hit that Spike two or three times and drive a 10 or a 12in spike all the way down to the top of the nail head your subbase is too soft which means you've got got to do a soil correction but if you pal that steak in and you hammer on it and you hammer on it and you hammer on it and you can't get that steak to move you're in good shape it is absolutely critical that you compact the subbase you use as heavy of equipment as you can possibly get your hands on in this case 150lb plate compactor will typically not be enough to pound the subbase material I personally prefer to use at least 1,000lb plate Packer or 33-in trench compactor these two types of compaction equipment will typically generate a deeper lift for you giving you better compaction here's a professional tip if your subbase seems to have a high moisture content just lay down some Filter Fabric before you put your base in so once you have your subbase compacted the next step is to import your base material I prefer to use a class 5 a class 5 is simply nothing more than a 34in rock that has fines mixed into it that have has a cohesive nature so once you pack it it stays uniform if you're going to be installing a typical PA patio or a PA driveway the depth of your base is 6 in if you're going to be driving larger trucks or larger vehicles on this driveway then you're going to want to deepen That Base to 8 or even 10 in commercial sites when we are installing the base material for semi Lanes around the Walmarts and the hivs and the Superstores that you guys frequent we use up to a foot of Base material if you open your back door and you're experiencing Frost Heath what you're going to be doing is you're going to dig all the way down to the bottom of your footing that may be 3 or 4 ft or more and you're going to replace that with pure 3/4 Clear Rock you may hear some people say oh don't do that but let me let me fill you in on something this is how we fix commercial sites so when you're putting your base material in I use two lifts I don't need to use two lifts because I'm using a 1000lb plate compactor but I'm using two lifts because that extra level of compaction ensures that my patio is going to look the same a decade from now as it did the day I installed it now you've got your base material in you've got it compacted the third and final element to preparing your base for a p patio paper installation is your sand or your screed base the critical measurement you need to keep in your mind is 1 in the reason you do not want to go more than 1 in with the sand is because it has no cohesive material in it which means that the sand has the potential to move and if you take a pinpoint pressure on the edge of a block that you install in a PA patio and you put enough force on the edge of that one pav it has the potential to push down which means that the other end pushes up some of my best installers have fought me on this point until I've asked them to put their name their reputation and their guarantee on the line and they tend to agree with [Music] you you can see the sub cut we've made the yellow line indicates the height of the paper Pao the class 5 Base needs to still come up and then we put a place an inch of sand very technical today we're preing prepping the base but I've said it before too much sand is a bad thing and I'm going to show you how to get your sand absolutely precise we have the class five Bas in Come a Little Closer what you're going to see is our trick to get about 1 in of sand and that is to use a 1- in pipe it's as simple as that this is the depth of the sand you need underneath your pavers no more no less you lay this pipe down you put your screed rail on top of it and that is the sand layer you can actually see a finished section right over here this is finished to exactly one in of sand more than that is going to make your pavers tip a lot of people get really confused and flustered when it comes to installing a patio on how to lay out the bricks but you can actually install a cutless PA patio fairly easily as long as you are not absolutely Critical with the dimensions and layout of your patio okay so Blaine is actually making what we call a cutless patio and the reason he's doing this is because he has no restrictions on what he's actually doing so the customer want a 20x 23t patio um with the soldier we're just a hair under 20 ft um but that way you don't have to cut any Cuts okay so we're a hair under on this side and we'll be go a hair over a/ inch over on the other side but then we have zero cuts to make now if we had to be exactly precise with this patio what we'd end up doing is before we install this Soldier course we'd hang the bricks longer snap a string line and then take the chopsaw and go zip straight down the string line and cut them all at one time versus taking each brick out and making a cut and putting it in pulling a brick out making a cut putting it in it's much more efficient this way once the patio is installed you need to put sand in the joints so you lay the bricks out then you put a final layer of sand in those joints to fill them up now there's options here you can put regular sand in I prefer regular sand you sweep it into all the joints you run 50lb plate Packer over the top of that patio and that settles the sand into all the joints you res sweep it and you keep compacting it until the sand is all the way up to the top your second option is to use a polymeric sand and this is a water water activated blend which means you forgo putting the standard sand in and you purchase polymeric sand in bags you lay it on you install it the same except for the final element is you hose it all down once you hose it down you activate the polymeric compounds within that sand and it binds together a lot of companies will recommend that you use this but the technology at this point in time I do not believe warrants using polymeric sand because I've seen first hand that after 3 4 5 years that polymeric sand chunks and when it chunks it breaks up in big pieces and it separates off from the patio it can never go back in place so then you're left redoing the patio now paper patios have a certain element of Maintenance irregardless but you can freshen up standard sand compounds by grabbing a bag of sand and sweeping it in and hosing it off every year takes you 30 40 minutes at the tops if your polymeric sand breaks up you've got to get remove all of the polymeric sand and start all over again it's a higher level of Maintenance down the road it's your choice hope these techniques have helped you to understand a little bit better when you're installing your own paper patio what the most important element is now from the installers that are watching this video do me a favor share your tips and techniques in the comments down below cuz we have consumers that are watching these paper paos trying to educate themselves on how to do this and there's more than one way to skin a cat and some of the things that you guys are doing are absolutely amazing so please share your wisdom in the comments down below God bless I hope for nothing but the best I hope your projects turn out absolutely that's another one of those a so let's get back to the standard good morning to you and all that you do good morning good morning good morning to you and I've got nothing else

Channel: Stanley "Dirt Monkey" Genadek

Views: 2,125,942

Keywords: patio, patio ideas, patio paver installation, how to build a patio, diy, diy patio, do it yourself patio, do it yourself projects, do it yourself paver patio, pavers installation, pavers, how to install a patio, paver patio installation, driveway, patio installation, brick driveway, backyard patio, backyard patio ideas, outdoor patio, outdoor patio ideas, do it yourself backyard projects, do it yourself backyard patio, diy project, diy backyard landscaping, diy projects

Id: 48pp5pNY7x8

Length: 9min 30sec (570 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 26 2016