How to Rebuild a patio for beginners- Step by Step DIY Guide to make an Old patio look like new

So today we're going to be rebuilding the patio behind me. You can see that it's experienced some differential settlement over the course of the last 10 years. The beautiful part about a PA patio is if the bricks are in decent condition, they can be pulled up. The base can be releveled and they can be reused. If this was concrete, this would have experienced severe cracking, making it unrepable. Be tempted as you're pulling the bricks out to try to set them aside so that you can easily put them back in in the same pattern that they came out. But I'm going to tell you not to bother trying to do that. it's going to be almost inevitable that the pattern will change. Meaning that along the perimeter of your patio that you're rebuilding, you are probably going to have to make new cuts. This will make your life simpler and easier than trying to use a pre-cut brick in a brand new field of pavers. Now, in a perfect world, everything you pull out of the patio you're rebuilding should fit nicely right back in place. But this isn't a perfect world, so be prepared to make a few cuts. Typically, you'll do this with a chop saw, with a concrete blade, but if you're in a pinch, you can even get by with a tile saw to make one [music] or two cuts. Now, after I've removed all the pavers, I like to lay down a layer of heavy duty permeable fabric. This will help the new subbase material stay separated from the old base material, meaning that any fines will not mitigate down into any pre-existing holes that created the initial settlement in the first place. All right, we're resetting the pavers and I want to look at one side from the other. This side is just about a/4 inch high right here because when we go to tamp it down, it's going to tamp flush. This side is actually just a little bit too low at this point. So when we go to tamp this down, if we have these blocks perfectly flush, they're going to be below the level we want to be at. So Thomas is pulling these out and adding just a little bit of sand to raise them up. So when we tamp this down, we're exactly where we want to be at. [music] Never pound directly on your pavers with a steel mallet or hammer. It will crack and bust them. Just use a wood block as a cushion in between. Now, I started experimenting with Sakrete's pave set and found out that I absolutely love this material, but it is not a one and you're done. meaning you can't put this in and leave it for years and years without maintenance. I just called Lowe's and asked them if they have paver set because that's the material I want to use to rebuild this patio with. They told me they didn't have it on hand, but I got a weird feeling from talking to them that they just didn't know exactly what I was looking for. So, I decided to drive down and search for it on my own. I like it because with this stuff, it'll last much longer than any other material, but you will have to refresh this every 2 to 3 years. But still, the benefits of using this material over standard sand has changed my opinion on using a poly sand material here. If they have it, this would be the aisle. Ah, look what they don't have. paper set polymer sand by sackree. After using this stuff on a few of my projects, I realized I'd rather go search for this stuff than to use something else. Now, before applying your first layer of polymeric sand, [music] your surfaces must be 100% bow and dry. We're using an electric blower just to go over the surfaces to dry off any surface condensation. If you happen to have any moisture on those surfaces when you lay down your polymer sand, it'll stick. Now, you want to run a 150lb plate packer over the patio to settle the sand in between the joint spaces, but be careful because you can actually overpack your patio and eventually crack the pavers. So, one or two passes is kind of the sweet spot that you're aiming for. It's just like mowing grass. You don't need to go over the same spot over and over again. After you've packed in your first coat and settled the sand into the joint spaces, you'll add a second layer. You can actually see how much has settled down. [music] It usually goes about 3/4 to 1/2 in when we use this thing. It sells in the sand. Dwayne is become the paper king. Yeah. So, now that you've got the plate packer and you vibrated the sand in and then re-swept the sand joints, it's time to clean it. This is where an electric blower comes in handy. You don't have to go crazy doing this process. You just want to dust off the top that when you activate the sand, it stays in the joint. Once all the excess sand has been blown off, you're ready to activate it. The important thing is to just use your handheld nozzle on the shower setting to lightly mist it in. You don't want to overwater it. You don't want to power it through because this is going to wash the sand up and out of the joint space. You really want the sand to stay inside the joint spaces as you water it. See, now I can see that the water's coming to the surface. Doesn't take a whole lot. As you apply water, you'll notice the patio changes color. This is a great example of what a wet look sealer will look like. Now, I do recommend you apply a sealer, but if you don't like the wet look, you can just go with a natural and it won't alter the color this dramatically. It doesn't take a whole lot to activate this material. Now, on this patio, instead of going with Satre's wet look, we opted to go with their natural sealer. The important thing to remember is this patio is still protected either way. You can completely change the aesthetics of a patio like this just by changing the type of sealer you use at the end of the job. Now, if a video like this has helped you guys out, let me know in the comments down below or hit the like button. Next [music] week, we got something special planned for you, so make sure you subscribe and stay tuned for that. God bless. Go get them.