Poly Sand ISSUES! We Tested - HERE'S THE RESULTS

hey guys what's up i am weston with chassis landscaping we are an outdoor living space design company based on central pennsylvania here and we do a lot of outdoor living space designs one of the elements in those designs is hardscapes paper patios and such and we use polymeric sand in the joints of those pavers to protect against erosion and ants weeds all that stuff for years probably 10 some years we've used the same brand g2 alliance calamari sand products and uh we've never had an issue until the 2019 season here uh we've just been seeing uh sand not setting up properly staying gummy crusty we've worked with tech support they've offered some different tips with installation methods but have not had a whole lot of luck with them we've we've tried what they've suggested and beyond but we haven't been able to get a whole lot of help so we're going to find out the answer for ourselves we're going to set up five different test plots of pavers that we chose the techo block bellagio paver because of its water joints we're going to install five different brands of polymeric sand and find out which one performs the best hopefully we you know eradicate this issue for ourselves but not only for ourselves but for anyone else that's out there experiencing the same issues we've been having this year so without further ado let's get put in okay so we're done laying in our tiger block pavers um we're gonna put on an edge restraint sweep in our first uh layer of poly sand and compact it tamp it in with a hand tap a little bit normally use a plate machine but with this small test it's irrelevant to the sand so and then we'll sweep off the final sweep of sand wet it down as per spec and see what we come up with okay so ben is just finishing up tamping in these pavers here with the hand tab just real lightly we are ready for our first bag of sandblock we're gonna go start with the g2 here right down here then we're going to flexlock ultra poly sweep from sdk the uh polynomial papermate from srw and the tecnoseal so one two three four five here we go brown on the grass okay so all five brands are swept in ben's finishing up the last one the techno seal and actually see how that techno c1 performs this uh srw stuff is incredibly fine which would work better for like the ep henry pavers where they have a really really tight joint which i don't like by the way taco blox joints more like a quarter inch i believe and it's much nicer this uh sck stuff poly sweep i haven't actually used our job for real yet but it looks pretty coarse looks nice other than it's fairly coarse so is the flex lock ultra it also looks pretty coarse this is what we used here for many years the g2 stuff we started having issues so we went up to their top of the line one the flexlock ultra didn't really seem to help as much so anxious to see how this all sets up we're going to tamp these in now all right we are ready to wet this thing down just in time too we got a little bit of a rain mist coming in here we go okay that's a wrap we've officially wetted these down we're just gonna blow them off a little bit with the blower and uh yeah i guess all that's left to do is wait and see what happens this here is the techno seal this here is the srw and this here is the sck this is the flex lock ultra this is the g2 all right so we are like three hours in we just had like a little rain shower and the sun's popping out so that's why this is wet but uh we finished this at 11 2 30. so like three and a half hours and we were just kind of like checking this out obviously it's not cured yet this one's probably one of the firmest the g2 this one feels about the same as that one mostly it's also holding the most water which means it has the tightest bond this one is is the loosest it looks the nicest i'd say out of all the ones this one looks the nicest but it's it's definitely a bit softer this one i don't really like it's set up nice and firm i don't like how it looks it's like an extremely fine dusty sand and it's not as dark colored i just don't like how it looks as much this one is the softest of them all but it also looks like it got a good penetration of the water so we'll see but anyway we got to give it a few days especially with these cooler fall temperatures and see what we get for see what we come up with all right guys i'm out here on a project we're doing a photo shoot with the ep henry guys i got nathan here with me and matt they're uh shooting some uh photos and videos of these projects but while we're out here i'm gonna show you something regarding this sand problem we've been having with g2 products take a look this is why we were motivated to even do a video like this as we're like why is this happening like we've used g2 products for a long long time and never have had an issue but here you can see like here's what's happening it's got the top eighth inch it's like a gummy crust and then underneath that it's not curing and then what happens is weather breaks through that crust on top and it erodes out and we've been having this issue consistently pretty much on every job for the last 18 months or so so i just want to get some real world shots out here and show you the problems we were having out here on the projects which motivated us to do that test at the shop so um this is what it looks like i'll show you some shots of what it's doing after i'm done here i'm gonna head over to another project this actually happened after we did the test so this new product that i'm getting ready to show you uh we didn't even use it in our test plot there but we've used it on a few projects since we filmed doing that little test spot there at the shop and been extremely impressed now it's more expensive but way more life and way more durable so it's in our minds totally worth it here's what i'm talking about you can see that kind of it's scaling up you dig into underneath it it's just completely dry powder soft here's some more examples of how it it kind of just gets gummy on the surface and underneath it it's not cured it's completely loose so unfortunately we're gonna be power washing this entire project and uh gonna be redoing all the sand in this job now i need to mention to be fair and nobody wants nobody intentionally screws things up nobody intentionally manufactures a defective product and uh alliance has been working with us to try to figure out what the root of the problem is we've been a little frustrated with the process but they are they are making an attempt to figure out what the issue is so credit to them i just want to recognize them for that but i also want to be honest with what our conclusion is and uh to that end let's head over to that other project okay so i am here at this project where we installed a different product after we did that test plot at the shop just because we were trying all kinds of different products and i just want to show you this and this is still a construction site so it's still some dirt and stuff around but let's take a look here this sand is different in that it's a completely different chemistry that makes it hard and because it's different chemistry this will not mildew and mold and get black the polymeric sand tends to mold and get black over time moss grows on it very very easily because of how soft it is but this stuff is rock hard look at that so yeah we are incredibly happy with the performance of this sand it's been in for about eight or ten months now and just tends to get a lot harder as the polymeric sand does so the pros of this easy joint product is that it gets a lot harder completely different chemistry so it doesn't mold and get black moss is not growing as easily it lasts much longer than your traditional polymeric sand the polymeric sand you got to redo about every three four years this uh we expect to leave in here for 10 to 15 years before it needs any attention the cons are is it's definitely more expensive it's more expensive but when you divide you know so if you get three or four years out of polysand and you get 10 to 15 years out of this sand this is still cheaper in the long run it's just more expensive up front to install so if you're looking for the absolute best product without a doubt nothing comes even close to this easy joint product what's up guys it is now a few weeks later and i'm here on a new project that we just installed and what i want to show you you know so the first part of this video was the five the test across the five brands of poly sand and the results of it but we started using this product uh since we filmed that test between the five uh brands of poly sand and this stuff was too good to not show you and include as part of this video so i'm gonna show you how we install it it's a little bit of a different installation method and uh you guys can make the decision for yourselves okay so this here is rockstar otherwise known as brock and he is doing the application so as you can tell we have water all over these pavers oh no isn't that a disaster brock not really no i thought you can't have water on papers when you're doing sand um with the easy joint it actually helps it get in the cracks easier really basically the way this stuff works is it is the chemical reaction uh oxygen is what hardens it so water keeps it from hardening so this stuff is in the buckets kind of wet and then you dump it out on the patio and you sweep it in with water we got one of these water brooms where the hose hooks right into the handle of the broom and that water flow just aids the sand to uh go in so the cool stuff with the insulation of this is you don't have to have perfectly dry pavers two you don't have to sweep the poly sand and then plate it and then sweep it again a second time it's just a single just plate it as soon as you're done installing it and then uh sweep it in one time and you're done there's a couple things about the installation that we like that way but even better the end product um poly sand gets maybe a three to five year life tops before you got it gets all gummy and you have to redo it this stuff is rock hard when it's cured you don't have to uh redo it they say like 15 to 20 years so what we've been seeing is it's rock hard it doesn't get black and and mildew doesn't grow on it like poly sand does and because it's rock hard no problems with weeds so win-win right the only stipulation with this stuff is uh it's a little bit of a coarser sand you can tell like it's not quite as fun as poly sand so like ep henry bristlestone which has a very very tight joint this product won't work uh this product here is taco blue 60 which is a quarter inch wide joint and it works perfectly okay so brock here has pretty well finished sweeping it all in with the water broom and then after you're done with the water broom there's just some residue and stuff on top but the cool part is it's not like poly sand you go back through with a dry broom and just brush it all off and you are left with an excellent looking job how about it brock only if brock does it doesn't look excellent though okay so we're back here at the shop where we did this test plot probably six months ago and i know this video is already getting long the purpose of this video is to show you the outcome of this test with five different uh poly sands and as a little bit of a surprise below bonus to this video we're showing you the easy joint product as well which is not tested in this plot but i just came from there so without further ado let's take a look so let's look at the g2 stuff first now i would say this test actually did pretty good like it's nice and hard and it's probably about as good as polymeric sand gets however this is what our complaint is it sets up so hard and so fast that you break through the crust which the crust actually managed to be pretty thick on this test plot sometimes the issue we're having is the crust is only an eight or a sixteenth of an inch thick but you break through the crust here underneath it it's just completely loose uncured sand and uh once you once this crust starts to disintegrate or starts to soften up then you're kind of screwed you got just loose sand underneath that completely uncured but i would say as a general rule i would not complain about this performance with the polymeric sand for some reason this bag performed differently than the sand did on that other job that i just came from this is the same company different product and it's not quite as good you can see the crust is a little bit thinner and same story you get through that crust on top and it's all loose uncured sand underneath now this is poly sweep and it's actually not too bad it's actually better than the g2 stuff in terms of see all the way down at the bottom it's still pretty gummy it's still pretty cured this is the uh srw stuff and uh this one definitely i wouldn't recommend this one it's a lot softer and just does not hold up as good the g2 product definitely was better this was the technoseal it's actually pretty good i'm pretty impressed actually so as a conclusion i would personally at my house choose easyjoint it's just the best there's nothing it quite compares with it it uh performs extremely well you can see how it's rock hard uh poly sand never will be that hard doesn't matter if it's the best poly sand there is but you know for years we've had good luck with alliance until like the last 18 months or so and i'm still not quite sure what the explanation is behind that i know we've seen a bunch of other contractors report the same issues in my opinion when they introduce that new formula for that fast technology to be rain proof in like 10 or 15 minutes or whatever it is that's when things went south because it sets up so quickly that it doesn't let the water get down through the whole way it doesn't permeate the whole joint it doesn't matter if you flood it it just does not permeate the whole joint and then you get a crust and then underneath that crust it's just dry sand that never cures so in my opinion from what i've seen that is the problem with the polymeric sand from alliance but we're still working through it with alliances tech support they're working with us trying to resolve the issue they're coming out to help us replace the sand on some of those jobs so i will update you on our instagram stories when we're doing that and let you know what the outcome of those are hopefully this video was useful to you i know it was kind of all over the place and then we introduced easy joint right at the very end because it was just another product we had tried we really liked it i would 100 recommend it definitely think it's better than any of these five that we've tested here but you know the con is more expensive but what is more expensive a higher price up front or the pain and aggravation of redoing it every three or four years you decide you

Channel: Tussey Landscaping

Views: 225,731

Keywords: poly sand, joint sand, paver sand, sand for pavers, poly sand issues, poly sand problems, best poly sand, best sand for pavers, alliance g2 sand, alliance sand, g2 flexlock, alliance g2 problems, alliance sand problems, alliance sand issues, easy joint sand, easy joint sand compound, easy joint vs poly sand, easy joint vs alliance g2, is easy joint good, is poly sand good, is poly sand or easy joint better, ez joint, tussey landscaping, poly sand issues, polymeric sand

Id: SG4aoTEgjL0

Length: 17min 57sec (1077 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 22 2020