The Paving Blog

The modern – and necessary – urge to reclaim so much of what we build and package with has supplied us with many avenues to recycle.  Now, paving itself offers much the same process at an ever-widening rate.  Lets face it, the logic behind recycling has always been perfect.  It has just been easier to dig another gravel pit.

Nowadays, we have all seen those huge machines that scrape the top layers off asphalt and even concrete road ways and city streets.  These behemoths send all the “scrapings” behind itself in a neat row, easy for the machinery to pick up and transfer to a waiting truck.  What many don’t realize is that this material makes a fabulous base material. Many highways are now utilizing this recycled cement and asphalt by using them under the newer constructions, as their basic, compact able material.

In fact, there are now companies opening up everywhere reselling this “found” material which was oince relegated to landfills.  It is a great step in re usability and recycling.  The necessity for utilizing these materials goes without saying.  As we approach a finite end to the bountiful Nature we inherit, fewer local gravel pits will emerge and those that will, will open farther and farther from their intended place of use. These newer companies grind up the concrete and asphalt into separate areas, making it small enough to meet compaction specifications and producing the “fines” which allow these aggregates to bind together so tightly.

Look for these places when either shopping for base material for a driveway or look as well when you are dismantling one.  These guys are becoming important and they represent a great movement in conscientious recycling.

Going back to the same topic as the last post – I found a good shot of this product by Amazon, so thought I’d throw in a few more words about this fantastic kit. This one happens to be a box of 10 Kerr Lighting Cambridge Paver Lights sized 6″ x 9″.

This is an excellent article of lighting. A deep glass look of translucent beauty, even without the lights on, it provides a striking contrast to the solidity and opaque impermeability of the pavers alongside it. But its most important virtue, naturally, remains its nighttime properties.

Soft, muted lighting has the effect of providing an ambient lighting from the refraction from air particles and reflective surfaces of leaves, flowers and other surfaces nearby. The up lighting effect glows from underneath those higher elements, bringing them into more relief and highlighting effects like color and texture. Naturally, shadows are also included in the menagerie of cool effects brought on by lighting, as they shine on walls and up light adjoining plants and trees.

The security aspects of having a driveway which is navigable and clear ion even the darkest nights is an abundantly clear ‘plus’ in the addition of lights in a roadway. driveway or sidewalk. Aside from the muted beauty of the lighting and its effects, the very nature of well-lit byways provides a warm and very secure sensation. It is also a very welcoming and elegant presentation for visitors and neighbors. The value-added dimension of having this relatively inexpensive and easily-installed feature at one;s home not only causes increased value owing to its normal beautifying qualities, but also provides a rare and precious curb appeal.

A plate compactor is a vibratory machine whose heavy build and rapid shaking serve to compact soils and materials beneath where it runs. I can think of zero paver and paving contractors who do not own one, it is literally that necessary. For heavier projects requiring thickness of base material over 6-8″, these relatively little units might not be called for. Larger projects require the services of the “big brothers” of compaction equipment: rollers, jumping jacks and the like. But plate compactors are excellent for 6 inch and under compactions such as your typical driveway or patio.

Indeed, compacting the material underneath smaller areas like patios and sidewalks literally insures perfection for a much longer period of time. Taking out soils subject to heaving and sinking like clays or those containing a lot of organic material and replacing that with a compactable inorganic gravel mix is the height of wisdom. As proven over time, the “base materials” form the bottom of all hard surfaces we know of, from houses to roads and are considered necessary and professional to the max. Compacted, then covered with whatever surface, the surface applied to this compacted base stands the best chance of enduring even decades of usage.

Plate compactors are just the thing for all this. On our paver installations, we use it as well to compact the finished brick-laying, operating over a skim of sand and shaking the sand into the grout cracks between the pavers. As well, it embeds the pavers into the base and further compacts things to a finished gradient. A perfect machine, frankly.

Paver adhesives have become a most important tool in any driveway and patio installer’s construction tool arsenal. These amazing glues are useful in an increasingly wide variety of ways, from making more durable walls and steps, to placing new stonework atop existing slabs of cement. Paver glues have incredible adhering strength any more, even more so than cement itself. In fact, these glues are replacing cement in a wide area of application.

I have installed many many new patios over pre-existing patios and side walks. The cement base becomes our sub base making preparation nearly moot. The only true preparation is in the perfection of cleaning the surface prior to the gluing. Once clean of all greases, soils or any other contaminant, we apply glue during the laying of pavers in their normal patterns. The durability is mind blowing. The glues tend to dry rapidly and adhere most strongly with a clean base.

We have also been able to apply glue and the pavers to pre-existing stairs rising from a patio or driveway into a home. The ability to carry the design pattern to another platform has designers more than pleased. The look is strong and congruent with the laying field beyond, lending an organic touch of continuity to the entire project.

Strong and durable, paver adhesives have become yet another avenue toward beauty in the design and installation of driveways, walks and patios.

Epoxy stone work is yet another interesting and gorgeous possibility in paving surfaces. Put atop existing surfaces, the small and delightfully gorgeous, multi-colored pebbles are mixed with an epoxy slurry then spread with a trowel. The finished look is of a glossy and amazingly colorful product, just beautiful and also permitting a non-slip surface.

There can also be a wide range of stone products used. Mixed with the clear epoxy glue, a solid black or solid red surface appearance can be seeded with a few other colored rocks to present an amazingly spectacular finish. In general, installers have a few looks which are predominant choices and which have stood the aesthetic test of time by staying as pretty as they were when first applied. Earthy-toned, often, these surfaces do not overwhelm but, rather, they add a point of interest to the entire look.

Surprisingly, perhaps, these products are substantially durable. The epoxies now developed all have a nearly indestructible property, allowing all sorts of abuse, from snow shovel scraping to the elements of all kinds. Needles to say, the rocks are their typical few billion years old, having endured much worse than a home owner’s talents at messing things up.

I have become quite the fan of this item in recent years. It is not some glaring and obtrusive element at all. Far from it, the epoxy stone installations I have seen have been uniformly gorgeous and contributing to a wonderfully pretty environment. When lit,. by the way, with some landscape night lighting, they are uncommonly attractive.

Special effects in paving are a chance for someone to show off his slight bit of weird and wonderful genius in an interesting and designer-pleasing way. Bridges, curved effects, cantilevered pool edges all show a special bit of pizazz and out-of-the-ordinary imagination that translates magnificently to the landscape fancier’s eye. These features are an overall part of any exterior landscape and they can thereby enhance not just the experience of those who live there, but they can also simply delight the sense of any visitors. For pure curb appeal and value enhancement, few items in the exterior can produce as much intense interest in a home.

The suspended bridge shown here was poured concrete which was then stamped and colored to produce an arresting and most interesting entry to this once-model home. Indeed, bridges over water features are a sort of Holy Grail to many homeowners. We thought this one performed that function perfectly.

The other picture is of what is commonly referred to as an “Infinity Pool Edge”. Water consistently flows over the front edge, collected and dispersed below. What is most interesting here is that the pavers shown in the foreground are atop a cantilevered 3 foot ledge over the water. Not only does the cantilever aspect form an interesting shadow over the water mere inches below it, but at night a bright light underneath the suspended slab shines brightly and outstandingly, hidden well below the edge.