Walkways and Driveways With Pavers

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If ever there was an ideal Canadian walkway and driveway paving product, interlocking concrete paving bricks must be it. They’re called pavers in the trade, and besides looking great, the factory-cured concrete they're made from is almost as indestructible as granite. What other masonry product can stand up to years of our brutal, ground-level freeze/thaw cycles without crumbling? And if the earth beneath the installation heaves a bit during the spring, as often happens, interlocking pavers take it all in stride. Since they’re relatively small, the sand-filled gaps between each brick lends an inherent flexibility to the installation that prevents cracking of the bricks themselves. But all of this isn’t to say that interlocking walkways and driveways are fool proof. The weak link in the paver equation is installation. You’ve got to do things right or settling and brick misalignment will turn all this great potential into an ugly mess.

There are three things that go into any durable, attractive paver installation: a solid, mechanically-compacted base; a smooth, 1-inch deep layer of moist bedding sand right under the pavers; and orderly brick installation with mechanical side support. The techniques you’ll learn about here put all three of these features into practice, creating durable, field-tested results that have proven successful under the harsh challenges of the Canadian climate.

Features Of Success
Installing brick pavers isn’t cheap or easy, so you’ll want to protect your investment of sweat and dollars with a foundation base you can count on. And that means different things in different applications. Foot paths that won’t be driven on, for instance, age gracefully atop a 6-inch deep layer of fine, mechanically compacted aggregate in a trench that puts the top of the pavers about 1/4-inch above the surrounding grade. Driveways need at least a 12-inch deep compacted layer in the same sort of trench because of the extra weight of vehicles they'll bear.

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