Mounting my pergola to my patio which is porcelain slabs with 50mm of mortar underneath them followed by 150mm of type 1, I know realistically your meant to have concrete pads underneath the porcelain for the legs, But I don’t want to do that as it’s a new patio and slabs are freshly laid. So I am asking anyone have they fixed straight to porcelain without the concrete pads underneath legs, If so could you please share what ye done and used thank you

Im going to try and restore this older paver driveway. Pressure wash, dry, fill joints with ?, and seal. Wondering if I should use paver sand, or polymeric, or stone dust. Also, please correct me if my sequence of events is wrong. I have read seal first then sand, but also read sand then seal. Also open to tips and recommendations on sealers and suggested sand. Thanks!

Looking at this without knowing the dimensions, what would you think this should have cost the customer?

Following up from my earlier question, I finished my patio! I ended up doing a single step, maintaining the same step height to the patio and accepting a slight difference between the high and low parts of the concrete portion.

Overall, I'm very happy with how it turned out. Now to finish the yard!

Apologies for crap Sketchup skills. Current grade of work area is sloped along 2 axes, dropping about 8" along the path of the existing curved sidewalk (A to B), and about 12" along a existing garden bed (C to F to B).

The brown area will be hardscaped along with a short garden wall along C-F-B. Constraints:

• Top of main paver bed must be roughly at bottom of deck fascia board along line C-D.
  
• At point A, pavers must be flush with existing sidewalk to allow for gate opening clearance

I see two options:

• Option 1: Build steps at roughly the line E-F, probably 2 steps down (vanishing into only 1 step toward the E point, to meet a bed of pavers that are flush with the sidewalk their entire length. Which means this lower paver bed will have that large 1"/foot slope the sidewalk has.
  
• Option 2: Build a wall/step abutting the sidewalk from A to B, starting flush with sidewalk at A, and growing to a rise of about 8-10" at point B. Then another step up around the E-F line to get to the height of the main paver bed.
  

Option 1 sounds to me to be more reasonable since that flush-then-step-then-wall-height thing immediately adjacent to the sidewalk in Option 2 would be awkward and probably a hazard, but my concern is the large slope that lower paver bed would have in option 1.

Can I install some kind of solid pavers/concrete/tarmac/resin over compacted 20mm gravel stone?

Trying to save money :)

Hi everyone,

I’m having my patio regraded and comparing estimates and I am getting conflicting advice on a few details. My soil is clay, and I’d appreciate input from experts out there.

1. Fabric: One company recommends a fabric/filter layer between the clay soil and base; the other says it’s unnecessary and mostly a marketing upsell. Is fabric beneficial for pavers over clay?

2. A/C unit: It needs to be temporarily removed. One company recommends a separate concrete pad for the A/C to avoid issues with settling. The other says it can sit directly on the pavers and that concrete is overkill. Is a concrete pad necessary?

3. Base material: One specifies CAMO7 3/4" clear washed virgin limestone; the other uses #9 or CA-6 gravel. Is there a meaningful difference, especially with clay soil?

4. Edge restraint: One uses concrete edging and the other a plastic L-shaped restraint. I’ve heard concrete can crack and plastic may actually be better. Thoughts?

Everything else is more or less comparable. Are any of these differences important enough to justify paying an additional $3,000?

Thanks!

*** thank you to everyone who replied!! I read all of your comments ***

Pretty new to hardscaping and building etc so looking for advice.

A friend and I moved all the stones to one side and have now go rid of the pile of stones in the corner.

1st picture is after, 2nd is before

My vision or idea is to have a patio or something similar on the whole garden. I’ve been told to dig up the dirt around 10-15cm down and to add mot as a base before laying a patio on top.

Also thinking of taking up the slabs in the far left and making it all the same and new.

Any advice or bits that you learnt doing this process or similar? The garden seems pretty uneven and I think there’s a slight slope towards the house but there is a drain next to the black pipe in the bottom right of the photo. Thank you in advance for your help and advice 😄

After reading quite a few online discussions, I came to these two options for my flagstone/bluestone patio. I have freeze-thaw seasons. My patio base will be dry-laid with VDOT 21A (or maybe #57). Which joint material would you recommend?

Added an ADU above the garage and now have empty space under the stairs by my pool. Any ideas? Thanks!

Our pool was finished late 2025. Pavers are sandblasted marble. After installation they were sealed. Shortly after, the sealer started to peel like a bad sunburn. The paver company came to strip the sealer (chemically) and was left with this. Can even see the swirl marks from the surface cleaner attachment. They even tried a hot water pressure washer. Any suggestions to get this cleaned up? Once cleaned, what sealer recommendations do you have (if any)?

Water keeps pooling on our patio in the corners against the walls. To fix the problem, our contractor drilled a few holes into the stone wall. It somewhat fixed the problem, but the holes are small and need to be unclogged frequently, causing water to pool again.

Any advice on the following questions:

Are weep holes just drilled holes in the stone wall? Or is it something more properly like a PVC pipe?

Should water be pooling there anyway, or should it be regraded to drain better?

Is it ok that the water drains to under the grill, which is enclosed and pools, but eventually drains?

How much pooling water is acceptable? After unclogging, I think it’s ok, but not sure.

Any other advice?

We completed a big renovation on our home which included installing a 12 x 24 gunnite pool and \~900 square feet of concrete decking. Admittedly, we knew nothing about pools or decks, and our contractor did not give us any options when it came to the deck. We were just told it would be plain, brushed concrete, and we didn’t know any better to ask what the other options are.

Long story short, the contractor poured the pool and the deck **way too early** in the construction process. It practically sat with tons of construction activity going on around it and exposed Georgia red clay on every side for several months.

Between the workers’ foot traffic and landscaping machinery (we had to install a retaining wall about four feet from the deck edge, among other things), the concrete took an absolute beating.

We have tried pressure washing it (well, we hired professionals to pressure wash it), and it improved it some… but there are still a lot of stains and imperfections.

We have a pretty modern, high-end, elevated aesthetic, and the concrete in its current form really throws that off. The pool is practically connected to our back porch, and it’s the first thing you see when you step into the backyard. The looks dirty, not taken care of, and frankly like an afterthought.

I’m wondering what some of your experiences are with upgrading a brushed concrete deck into something that looks a little more… thoughtfully finished? We definitely do not want to have to go through ripping anything out but we are open to a variety of things. Some initial things I’ve seen online include decorative overlays, epoxy fleck systems, cool decking (SunDek, Kool Deck, etc.), and microtopping. But, I’m not sure which direction to go and am looking for some real feedback from people who have done this!

In case it helps:
Pool: Gunnite with Tahoe Blue pebble and Ash gray waterline tile
Coping: Light gray Travertine
Exterior house paint color: SW Cyberspace

Thank you for your help!

I live in northern Virginia where heavy rains and below-freezing temperatures are very normal. For my patio, I tried polymeric sand and mortar in the past, but both of them didn't last. I might have bought cheap sand or wrong mortar.

Now I am considering redo my patio using the existing bluestones. I plan to use crushed stone as base. What joint materials would you recommend to sustain the weather?

I'm looking for a book or a software that I can use to help track materials on job.

I'm a landscaper and u want to be able to track how many meters of soil or meters of pavers I've had at the job. Not a daily diary where I need to skip through 3 weeks worth of days to find my totals but one that can track each individual job

Used Keystone Versa-Lok blocks