How To Install a Concrete Paver Walkway (DIY)

is up to the gate done to the bottom my basement door is done and we also got the edges concreted from here to that wall and then from the wall to that post so that's the other things we got left to do today is concrete the rest of these edges up to where we stopped and then we're going to um we're going to dig out this area behind the gate so we can continue our walkway to the uh to the driveway there we got all our material we need we got the three-quarter inch stone for the base on the rest of the walkway continuation we got the chipstone for our bedding stand we got water pavers regular pavers and underneath that top there we got our concrete so we're gonna keep moving see if uh benny's got anything good to say this morning on another another rainy day what is this rainy day number 14 out of the past 15 days benny oh it's serious flash flood warnings for like the past week and a half every day right every day yeah whether the sun was out or not 86 and sunny hey there's a flat coming hello everyone if you're new to the channel welcome to the christian hardscaper where we have a lot of content just like this we do landscape construction and hardscape installations just like this a lot of concrete paver and natural stone patios walkways walls stairs and more today's project is going to be us finishing up this really big uh backyard transformation that we did and um we're gonna pretty much walk you through all the basics of how we go about our concrete paver walkway and patio installations all right guys so step one is excavation and uh depending on where you are in your uh geography i guess really determines how much you have to excavate we are operating out of massachusetts in a freeze thaw climate and we have to excavate a minimum of six to eight inches of soil depending on the soil types this soil type here is pretty consistent of clay and loom so we ended up excavating this down about 10 inches with that 10 inches if you can see we're starting to get to a point where the soil actually changes color and that's a pretty good uh telltale sign that you get into a good sub base um lumen clay will generally um hold the water back pretty good and it's kind of a darker color but as you can see we're we're getting through our top soil base down to a nice sub base with more gravel sand and stone so once you start changing the uh the soil colors like that from a dark dark soil to a lighter lighter tan like this usually you're pretty good and like i said we're at about 10 inches below top of paver grade so um we're good for our situation where we are and um next step is going to be backfilling all right guys it's been a busy wet morning it's still raining ben apparently ben made a mess oh yeah and he made a mess i cleaned it anyway we are all excavated out about uh 10 to 11 inches throughout from final grade so the next step is as you guys have seen before we put a thin layer of um three-quarter inch stone that we have over there that we use for the base about one to um two inches of that break it out to the grade and um level we want the subways to be and then we compact it i said before our next step is back filling and uh this is something that we do on every project we get to the sub subgrade that we need to be and we spread out this thin layer of clean three-quarter inch crushed stone rake it out smooth and we're going to use our compactor to um really compact this into our sub base correct the soil which will help with uh drainage and allow the water to permeate into the ground much better than if you just compact the sub base and free do-it-yourselfers if you don't have a big plate compact like this you can rent one or if you have the time just use a nice hand tamper and uh compact into the base the plus about this system that we're doing is that after you compact that uh thin layer of three quarter inch stone into the sub base you don't need a compact anymore this three quarter inch stone actually comes 98 percent compacted upon uh when you dump it so that you don't actually have to compact it and that is the main one of the main reasons why we use this system so to talk about this fabric we're using underneath our base it's a geotechnical fabric it's not woven and it's not made out of cloth it's made out of plastic so what's this what this is going to do when we spread it out nice and then backfill it with this three quarter inch stone is it's actually going to stabilize our base 10-fold and if anything were to happen in the future where the sub-base underneath this fabric were to sink a little bit or shift the fabric will actually be held tight just from the pressure of all the stone that we backfill on top of it and uh prevent sinking in the past three years of me using this system and that's probably 50 plus different hardscape jobs and installations i haven't had to go back and warranty any any uh installations i've done for sinking or shifting the system is really tested and true and has definitely proven to me to never go back to dense grade or class five gravel whatever you call it in your area this is really the number one system in my mind for drainage and stability for pavers to rest on what it does is is really allow for the water that um if in a regular install using dense grade or classified material would hold water this this base does not hold water and the pavers never sit in a puddle of water because of it and that's number one with any paver installation or concrete block installation so i have used this system for the past three years and i will continue to use this system until something better comes along which i can't see happening for a while so now i'm setting up my screed pipes as you see i'm going to try to match it with my um existing walkway that i've laid and the driveway and then mesh the the four pipes in the middle i will explain in this next clip all right guys we are two grade pipes are set we're ready to put some chip stone as you saw i cut the asphalt from the driveway so we have a nice straight edge to uh put our pavers up against we always do that because you'll almost never find a uh straight edge uh driveway really it just usually gets poured and then compacted it's never uh straight up and down so that's why we cut that we've got these pipes set they pitch down that way and down this way we got these pipes coming off of that walkway pitch down this way and this way so whatever water comes from the walkway from inside and the driveway come down and um wick off to the right here so let me jump right back into it throw some chip stone down spread it out start screening pull these pipes out start laying some more pavers try to get this walkway done before the day's over stay tuned all right guys i did screed most of this off camera but um just for you to know this these pipes that i'm using for screed rails are a one inch gas pipe and the one inch is interior so it's about one and a quarter exterior pipe and and the reason why we do that is that these pipes are nice and solid and sturdy i have seen people use pvc pipe and um in in gas pipe but like half inch or thinner and the downfall to this is that the pipe is flexible and can warp easily and if you use a warped pipe or a plastic pvc pipe you can have uh dips and um and dives in your your walkway afterwards because the pipes are not perfectly straight so i would definitely not recommend using the uh the plastic pvc conduit pipes or anything like that and if you're going with a a metal aluminum galvanized pipe don't use uh fence posts and don't use too thin of a pipe like i said i recommend these uh one inch interior one and a quarter inch exterior galvanized gas pipes that you can buy at any um you know home store home depot lowe's or even a hardware store and they'll give you a really true and flat screed for your concrete pavers to lay on one thing i've learned from doing all this work is that you really need to take your time through this process and make sure everything gets laid right you know there's nothing worse than spending a lot of your time and effort to do a project like this just for it to not be perfectly flat you see uh curved joint lines or um dips and dives in your walkway and that um that really takes away from the end product so my best advice is really just take your time i take these steps that i'm showing you and um try to accomplish them as perfect as possible and uh you know don't worry about what people have to say with how long things are supposed to take uh something i've realized in my career with this hardscape uh work is that you know the the more time you spend practicing and actually working on good quality that's the most important part and then you know your efficiency and your time will come after that everyone got some more done all the uh the walkway pavers are in to where they need to be now we just got to lay the border out make our marks and cut it sorry everyone i had uh the radio going in the background and youtube hit me with the copyright so i had to do a voiceover but what i'm showing you here is our pavers are about an inch and a half lower than the bottom of our gate which gives us room in case the pavers uh lift a little bit in the winter when it does freeze that's a pretty important part of uh install like this if there's a gate you want to give yourself some leeway and some room for uh for everything to freeze and lift up and then drop back down but our next step here is going to be laying on our border exactly how we want it and marking it to cut it um there's a few different techniques you can use some people use a pvc conduit or edging or something to lay out and give you your mark just because it's quicker but personally i like to actually lay the border out dry on top of our patio or walkway like we have here to really get an eye on exactly what it's going to look like when you lay these pavers out like this before you mark it you can really see and get dear what it's going to look like beforehand as compared to laying out a pipe so this is the way we always do it i got this curve set up nicely so i'm gonna mark it and uh give her a cut all right guys so as i was saying this is uh in my mind the best uh way to lay out a radius and mark the pavers for cutting if you don't lay out your border papers first and use any other technique you're really just kind of guessing what the radius is going to look like and i know a lot of you guys are gonna say that you can do it a lot quicker without laying in the barrel i really don't care this is the most precise way in my mind to do it so what i'm doing here you just saw in the clip before that i scored the line that i made before i started doing the full cuts and that gives me a nice guideline along the whole edge to follow for when i do do the full cuts like i'm doing now and um when you have this many pavers to cut at once make sure you use water guys because it's just very helpful for the longevity of the blade that you bought and it prevents all that uh silica dust from getting in your lungs that stuff's really not good for you so now that i have the uh the edge cut i'm going to uh smooth out this chip stone add a little bit so that the border pavers a little bit higher than our actually our actual walkway pavers so that i can hammer them and set them into place to help prevent sinking in the future i guess the number one thing about that is the uh the edge is the first thing to fail so you want to uh really make sure that you do everything you can to prevent that some perfect timing bud benny just got back he's unhooking the pallet and i just finished the border all right so back into these uh these cuts guys if you don't have a saw like this which obviously not many people do for you do-it-yourselfers if you head down to your home your local home depot or lowe's you can rent a saw like this for less than a hundred dollars a day or um there's other options but i would definitely recommend getting a good cut off saw for something like this even if you guys spend the money to rent it so these inner radius cuts on the in inner side of this walkway you gotta cut one by one just because um you know in a radius you can end up damaging the pavers next to them and uh it's just the best way so i got benny running them back and forth to me as i cut and this uh keeps the bedding bedding sand in uh in good condition so you don't have to redo that [Music] [Music] [Music] hmm [Music] all right so you've just seen a uh inner radius cut uh definitely takes more time than you than an outer radius cut um what i like to do here as you see the score line um i scored all the pavers before cutting them and what i do is i'll take it from the beginning point of the radius and cut straight to the end point of the radius on the specific paver that i'm on and then anything in the middle that i still have to uh take off because it's such a tight inner radius once the bulk of the paver is uh cut off and gone i can take my cutoff saw and i can just kind of uh you know eat away at the um the little bit that's in between that you're about to see again right here i'm just kind of i got my blade at a good angle and i'm just i'm just chewing off all the little pieces that are still left over outside of my score line and then that leaves me with a nice inner radius clean cut and this stuff takes time guys especially any of this custom concrete paperwork you just got to realize that it's going to be it's going to be a lot of labor a lot of time and uh you know be willing to do it and you'll get end results of cuts like this nice clean um tight tight cut lines and uh you know an end product that you know a lot of people just don't see they'll set you apart from the rest it's done except for we're not done but it's laid all cuts are done there was a lot of cuts here benny boy a lot of cuts three heads was cut tired of cutting man but it's done looks awesome then he's getting the edges prepped for some concrete we'll concrete the edges wash everything down and we're going to call it a day hey [Music] we gonna call it a day day is what we're gonna call it out in stormy weather [Music] you might think you'll see me falling to the ground but i threw up my umbrella when rain stops sitting down [Music] [Music] you keep me going i strong need my happy face to keep me

Channel: The Christian Hardscaper

Views: 184,499

Keywords: paver walkway, paver walkways and patios, how to install a paver walkway, diy paver walkway install, how to install concrete pavers, how to lay a paver walkway, laying pavers for beginners, concrete paver walkway, concrete paver walkway install, building a curved paver walkway, curved paver walkway, how to build a curved paver walkway, curved paver walkway install, laying a curved paver walkway, how to cut curved paver walkways, diy curved paver walkway, diy paver walkway

Id: -IL-ZmX-BCc

Length: 19min 37sec (1177 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 09 2022