The Paving Blog

Here is a picture of a patio which we sloped from either direction down into a 40′ long channel drain. Done in Reno, they tend to get their rains in a rush, pretty much all at once, to say nothing of the snow they can accumulate. We needed something sizable to take the amounts of water we’d be dealing with. Naturally, the terrain is dead flat – or close to it, making eventual destinations a challenge but do-able.

It all came from this – note the larger pipes, all designed to haul water. Needless to say, these run to a lower area – part out to the street and another part to the rear of the property, where we had installed a basin.

Here is a look at a typical channel drain, on sale here from Amazon. Composed of hardened plastic, these drains can take the tamping and compacting which normal compacting/vibrating machines do to surrounding pavers.

Here’s a look at a driveway channel drain, placed where so many end up, close to the garage. It is unfortunate that we often have streets above homes because it can lead to problems of an obvious nature when huge rainfalls come. Sigh, well, the very best we have is right here in these drains and they do work marvelously.

Sealers have become a huge question concerning not only cement in general but also for use on brick pavers used in sidewalks, patios and driveways. The reasons for using them often tend to revolve around matters of appearance when – in fact – it is something completely practical in the end which militates using a sealer on any cement surface.

Considering the many spaces between the wild number of bricks involved, it is just a matter of time before wind, rain, human traffic and the work on top of it erode some of the joint sand away. Now, while this doesn’t necessarily compromise the structure or stability of the edifice, it will make it slightly more unattractive. A sealer can bind the sand joints and leave them in place at their finished level for far longer than a natural finish will do.

Another compelling reason for applying a sealer lies in the ability to clean up after such events as oil and gas spills, barbecue mishaps and the likes. A protective sheen protects the color of the pavers and cement and makes cleaning up far, far easier.

Finally, as in the picture shown above, there is something to be said for a nice-looking surface, all glossy and apparently “wet”. It indeed brings out the color and the surface tones far better and in a hugely interesting way.

Sealers add value, especially relative to their low cost. Improving the look and making it more enduring is a goal, not a sentence.

The picture above from a Chinese supplier gives a reasonable range of color possibilities regarding natural stone paving. Having worked with paver-sized, small Granite blocks for the construction of major driveways, I can verify not only how gorgeous they look, finished, but also what a pain to install they could be back when they were not of the more uniform sizes offered now. In this I am comparing, of course, to the ease of formed and exact shapes of prefab interlocking cement pavers.

Well – Good news! These are also now on the market. Perfectly cut and sculpted natural granite and other stone products have emerged as a somewhat major player in the paving game. The advent of technologies where plasma cutters and simply elegant and efficient diamond blade saws are so common has led to yet another gorgeous paving option for driveways, patios, streets, even and walkways. Needless to say, the virtue of stone paving is huge – just look at the endurance and longevity of Europe’s many cobbletstone streets.

This is a refreshing and hopeful development in paving beauty and practicality and one we should all follow closely. It frankly excites me to think I can replicate what the Romans did. Just better!

Block paving for driveways are an interesting and developing technology in the modern driveway search for creative and more beautiful driveway solutions.  Block, or brick, pavers offer a segmented, modular look of a wide variety of patterns, designs and colors.  There is a nearly limitless variation owing to the ability now of manufacturers to create specialized patterns with the additionally interesting technology of adding tremendous and resonant colors to what were once a pretty much uni-colored environment.  Now riotous colors can greet visitors, along with shapes and forms of brick work totally attractive and interesting to the eye.

Block paving has many advantages in the sense that they are a somewhat “flexible” alternative to monolithic pours of cement or asphalt.  Where heaving and breakage occur in both asphalt and concrete, the modular nature of block paving for driveways means that the structure can bend or heave and not resist.  In other words, it will not break and require copious amounts of labor and reconstruction to fix.

When a block paver breaks in a driveway, one removes it and replaces it or others with new ones.  Lifting a paver out of the driveway is easy work, and certainly more preferable to having a crew come in to remove existing pavement and then reapply – in a different shade – what was once good to go. This ease of replacement is one of the paramount benefits of block paving for driveways, among many others.  One can rest far easier with a block-constructed driveway, fully knowing he will have fewer problems in the long run.  For what it;s worth, appraisers and real estate seller also understand the greater value of the block paver driveway.

While we deal with the structure and durability of the paving materials themselves, there is another completely separate consideration which bears attention: the spaces between the pavers.  Improper filling and inappropriate colored grouts and even the sands between manufactured paving stones can add or detract immeasurably to the final result, strictly aesthetically speaking. Where the spaces are small, it still bears on the issue.  Pavers reveal as little as an eighth of an inch between them, but they are so numerous and so evident, the appropriately colored sand used for dry grouting can be amazingly helpful. Needless to say, where the spaces between the stones is wider, we see yet another combination of opportunity: either helpful or harmful to the overall effect.

I have included some pictures of what the better-looking grouts can accomplish. In a sort of whimsical view, we also have the very cool area of fantasy and serendipitous grouting that actually can make stones look literally fun. What you see in these examples are examples of successful grouting – where the use of the proper grout can make the colors stand out more or can even overtake the overall look with some entirely different effect.

The general rule of thumb is to provide some congruent tone and texture that takes a back seat, highlighting the stones themselves.  But there are also case and situation where it can be equally desireable to highlight the grout in order to present a different effect.

Bear in mind, there are sealers we can add to the poaving itself to lock these grouts into place.  Apparently piled up sand can be sturdier than one initally believes owing to a sand-lock sealer which binds it in a sturdy fashion.

More drainage issues today – this time ;et’s talk about Catch Basins.

We have all seen those steel-grated manhole covers which are designed to catch the water on our street and roads.  There are also those curbside drains, cut into curbs on streets which perform the same function. These highly effective drainage systems rely on a perfectly graded surface which funnels all the rainwater or whatever water produced on a road into their orifices and down into the sewage system per se.

It turns out, this simple system can also function perfectly in a driveway or even a patio when a home owner faces drainage issues resulting from the tougher terrain where simple solutions like merely sloping a surface to an appropriate point is impossible. What we then arrive at is the need to conduct the water elsewhere.  This requires catching the water and providing a system to funnel it all away through piping and channels we create off the surface itself and sometimes under it.

Catching the water is the first issue.  The grading required to perform best would slope everything into “catch basins”, isolated collectors, connected to pipes running under the surface itself and conducted out.  These catch basins are either plastic, steel or concrete and have road-worthy tops, or grates, which filter things such as leaves, leaving them on top and allowing the water alone to enter.  Placed appropriately, these units can handle 100% of the water from a road surface if engineered correctly.  Needless to say, the primary grading should provide sloping to all of the various units installed.

A perfect system would not appear to be seriously sloped. The fact is that water needs very little slope top find its way downwards.  In more seriously rainy climates, naturally, there may be a need for a more serious slope owing to quantity and frequency of rainfall..Nevertheless, appropriately-placed catch basins are designed to do the work of leaving our driveways clear of water and of conducting all drainage away from the home.