[Turtle]

Great Forum!!! Everyone hear really is proffessional and knows their stuff.

Originally from PA now in Florida Thought i'd install pavers down here as primary business but you wouldn't believe how it is done down here if you saw it

What specs for the base are you using on a "typical" paver driveway

[HardDaysKnight]

Welcome to the gtx board Turtle. Share with us how they do
it where you practice now. That seems to be a fun start to
this thread and others can compare methods. You go first!
Good Luck in your new surroundings! Johnny

[Stonehenge]

Turtle, I think I may know, having heard from someone who works for a local company here that also owns an operation there.

Here we use 10-12" of crushed stone. And if my guess is right, down there they use about 2" of sand.

Am I close?


This discussion has been included in the site beginner's brick paving page.

[Bill Schwab]

One company I stopped at in Winter Garden used 1" of 1" muns then a sand screed....What is the sense using gravel if all you put down is an inch?

[Turtle]

1" (2" if they have to much delivered) We call it concrete fines recycled concrete crushed to a "fine" Raked with a Lute to as level as one can get with a lute. Compacted, and you can't get too crazy with the compaction or your fines will mix in with the sand. Pavers are laid to extend a little past where you want the drive way to be then a quickie saw is pulled out pavers are cut The border paver is installed It is locked in with mortar and some sand is spread on top. drive way done. Is everybody sitting down. A builder will pay 2.90-3.50 sq. ft installed labor, material, everything for a driveway.

[Stonehenge]

Yup, that's about the price I heard, too. They can't be making any money on projects like that. And while there's no freeze-thaw, jeez...they don't make the roads like that.

Turtle - have you had a chance to see any projects a few years after installation? I'd be curious to know how they held up.

[Bill Schwab]

That was only one of the reasons when I moved I chose Ca instead of Florida. I could not beleive the prices, and there is no way anyone is going to tell me they are taking taxes out of paychecks for that installed price..

[Turtle]

I do the irrigation, install sod and landscape for a couple builders here and Ive been there when the builder tells the homeowner we have to place the propane tank( Very few natural gas lines here) within 50 ft of the road because the truck wont be able to go on your driveway. We are not talking about a semi here or even a triaxle for that matter. and they aren't delivering propane every week either I'm amazed sooner or later this will all catch up to everybody and unfortunately probably leave a bad image for pavers here

And yes ive seen them a few years later uneven edges blown out out separating.

We get a lot of heavy rains here i honestly haven't figured out how these driveways even stay where they are after a month.

[paponte]

Unbelieveable. I'm with Stonehenge 10"-12", and in some cases geogrid underneath also. We use standard crushed concrete (RCA) in 3" lifts, and a 3/8" minus blend for the top 1" just to make laying easier.

[Rex Mann]

Different regions of the country have different acceptable installation methods than other regions.

We do residential driveways in Arizona, that need no aggregate base, according to the Soils Engineer. So we do not use any. However, no soils report, then we use aggregate under our pavers.

As far as price goes: we just completed a sand-and-pavers job, which was 4500 sf.

We charged $3.40 a sf. Another company bid it at $3.00 a sf.

The math:

revenue: 3.40 X 4500 sf = $15,300.00

labor with burden: 1,536.00

overhead: 1,050.00

pavers: 1.59 X 4640 7,378.00

concrete sand: 500.00

misc. materials: 200.00
_______

Gross Profit $4,636.00

All paver trucking is passed-on to the client.

A standard install, aggregate, sand and pavers, starts at $5.00 a sf and goes up.

That's our market.

Peace,

Rex





PaversInstalled.Com

[mrgreen_perth]

In Perth in Western Australia we pave driveways on 100mm (4") compacted crushed limestone (or roadbase) and 50mm brickies sand. Paving without vehicle traffic we just lay on 50mm compacted brickies sand.

We have very sandy soils though so from a subsoil aspect there is not much movement. In the eastern states of Australia a lot of driveways are paved over a concrete slab base as there is a lot of clay as subsoil...

I noticed Rex said that he uses concreting sand. Is that a standard practice? We use brickies sand as because of the clay content we get a 'tighter' compact that screeds better.

Cheers
Tony

[Stonehenge]

"brickies" is a term I'm not familiar with - what are the characteristics of brickies sand?

[mrgreen_perth]

I mean bricklayers sand. Maybe slang "brickies" for bricklayers is an aussie thing...

Don't know the exact makeup of bricklayers sand. It is what we used for mortar for bricklaying (again because of the clay content).

Concrete sand here has no clay content.

Cheers
Tony

[Stonehenge]

Ok, thanks for the explanation. So the brickies sand has clay in it? I'd never thought of an installation where you'd include sand that had clay content - how does it hold up?

Concrete sand here tends to be coarse and angular, no clay in it. The angularity helps it to bind together nicely when compacted, but it does still have the ability to move a little here and there.

I prefer not using any sand at all, but there are some materials and some layouts that work better using sand, se I'm always open to new ideas.

How big are the grains for the brickies sand?

[mrgreen_perth]

Hey Stonehenge,

I copied and edited the info from an info booklet from the Clay Brick and Paver Institute (Australia)

Reading it opened my eyes a bit too. Using Brickies Sand in mortar is to increase workability (though it may reduce bond strength if the clay content is too high!). Using it as a paving base after compacting it 'sticks' together better/tighter especially when a little water is added. The grains are really quite fine (smaller than concrete sand) and the clay content can make it almost dusty when really dry.

Brickies sand is used for mortar in all brick and block laying applications in Australia. Seems to hold up okay, there were issues here a while back with mortar 'falling out' but that was more because of use of excess plasticizer I think.

Cheers
Tony


Brickies Sand - A generally accepted limit for good masonry mortar to be used with clay units is that the sand should not contain more than 10 per cent passing the 75-micron sieve and not more than 1 per cent retained on the 2.36 mm sieve.

Material below 75 microns in size is usually clay and can produce the following problems:
• Smears and stains on the finished surface of the masonry caused by the clay particles. These smears can be difficult to remove.
• Reduction in mortar strength and particularly tensile bond strength of the masonry.
• A ‘sticky’ mortar mix that encourages the mason to overdose with air entraining admixtures.
• Durability problems caused by the breaking down of clay particles under cycles of wetting and drying.
• The mortar will have good workability without the addition of lime, tempting the mason to omit lime from the mix and thereby invite adverse effects.

On the other hand, small amounts of clay can be quite useful as a plasticiser and can produce a workable mix without the need for proprietary plasticisers that are so susceptible to overdosing. When problems arise they are not because of the presence of clay but the presence of too much. In many cases, the best course of action is to blend sand from equal parts of ‘fatty’ sand and washed sand to give a mix that provides a suitable workability and adequate strength. Good sand suppliers will do this at the source of supply.

When sand for use with clay units contains very fine material that is silica rather than clay, experience suggests that the use of a cellulosetype water thickener can improve tensile bond strength.