Stay-Put Paving Sand

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There are dozens of gorgeous new paving brick products hitting the market each year, but with the added beauty and diversity comes a problem. Many of these high-end bricks owe their good looks to a more rounded, irregular shape, especially around corners and edges. And while this looks terrific, it also means larger spaces between installed bricks and a much greater chance that the sand between them will get washed away by rain and melt water. It’s a problem, but there’s a fix.

Polymeric sand is one solution that I know works well because I’ve used it and watched the results over the last three years. Open up the bag and it looks like ordinary, free-flowing sand, and that’s how it behaves when you put it down. But unlike regular sand, the polymeric product firms up in reaction with water. It sounds good and it is, but there are challenges to installing it properly and limitations you need to know about before you begin.

If you’re installing poly sand in a new paving brick installation, there’s nothing different you need to do while putting the bricks down. If you’ve got an existing pathway that had ordinary sand applied originally, then you need to clean out all the gaps with a pressure washer. You need to create a perfectly clean situation, but you also need to be careful. There are two things to worry about here, and the first is the bricks themselves.

If you hit your pathway with the pressure washer wand too close to the bricks, it will leave permanent marks that won’t become apparent until after the water dries. How close is too close? That depends on the pressure output of your washer and the shape of the wand tip. Begin with the wand 12 inches away from the pathway surface, and adjust the distance from there. Aim to have just enough power delivered to clean out the gaps, but no more.

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