Installing a 15 x 30 Paver patio in 8 hours

It was just some kind of horror. This is gas. It feels like electric, solid limestone. The risk level here is very high. So we have five lines, gas and electric, running right where the walkway and patio should be. And this simply cannot be the case now. So, back to planning. These are the lines that we know for sure were laid by the owner. And if you look along it, you can see that it goes like this. She goes like this. And then just to the side. So, from , I think, somewhere from here to where the grass is, there's a huge limestone slab. So I guess we--he didn't go any deeper, because now it's probably about a foot and a half from here to the grass. This is about 4 inches deep, maybe less . So, where Sam is, there should be an extension of the patio, a sidewalk that goes away and wraps around the path. But there will be a problem with laying the paving stones, because we won't be able to lay the right amount of base. Now we have a few options that we can use if we continue with this project and the client wants us to continue laying the pavers. The first option is to start knocking out all this rock. This will require an additional agreement. Our second option is to offer the client a different type of material that will still allow them access and look like a finished product, but won't require the same amount of foundation. In this case, we offer the client the option of using natural stone, because if natural stone shifts and moves, it is not the end of the world, as natural stone automatically has different surface contours. And when natural stone is not rigidly connected , if one stone shifts slightly, it is not as noticeable as if they were lying close together and one stone lifted up, creating an obstacle to walking. Thanks to the gaps between them, we still achieve the goal of a completed landscape, but without the large amounts of earthworks and foundation preparation. We're making something like a stone path from where the corner of the patio will be, to here, and a little around the corner to the back door in this little house, hut or whatever it is. So, Blaine went to get the stone we need now. I'll finish putting this fabric in, and he should be back, hopefully, just as we're finishing up. One question that has come up before is: do I recommend using geotextiles under a patio? If you have soft or questionable soil and are worried about mixing it, that is, not mixing bad soil with good soil, separation fabric is a very cheap insurance policy. If you're hesitant about using it, let's say so. If you have doubts, spread them out . It just works, it's cheap protection, and you 'll have peace of mind. The paving stones we use in our projects are called Willow Creek Paving Stones. We have been using it for over 20 years and have never had a problem. With such experience, we feel confident delivering it to the customer's facility. They always provide consistent quality and color. We don't like surprises with materials when we bring them to the site . That's why we choose them. So on the sides of the patio where we will be going down to the beach, we don't want the stones to slide off. Although we use natural stone, which gives us more freedom when laying, we still don't want it to shift in four, five or ten years. Therefore, we lay a solid foundation of grade 5 secondary crushed stone and geotextiles. Then we lay the stones, level them, and finally cover them with 3/4 of the clean crushed stone of the client's choice. returned to our elaborate patio. I'll be glad when we're done with this object. That's right. Blaine went to pick up some supplies. While he's doing that, we'll quickly oil the machines and then I'll start putting in a few more of our steps. We stopped here initially because we had some huge stones to install, and we wanted to get as close as possible with the forklift. Because there's no way we could lift that giant by hand. The work would have been much easier and faster if we had access from the side where the stones are being unloaded, but this area is closed because it is not the client's property. In fact, neighbors own land right up to the work zone where we are, and we must respect those property boundaries. Actually, now Sam will show you exactly what we're dealing with. Yes. Yes, I know. A shovel is not the fastest way to do this. But here's the thing . These yards, these plot boundaries—they're just kind of pointless. Because the area of ​​the house where we work has this shape. Hey, it's just a weird letter L. And in that house over there—that's it , you know? So this is where the property line runs. And from that brief conversation with the neighbor, it seems that he wouldn't want anyone to drive beyond the boundaries of his property. The first step in installing our new paver patio is to remove all of the unsuitable, unstable organic layer beneath the planned area. The next step is to restore the foundation on which the patio will rest. In this case, we use grade 5 recycled material, also known as asphalt crumb. It consists of 3/4 inch stones down to dust, and it is compacted as hard as concrete. Since we only use a 150-pound plate compactor, it limits the thickness of the layers we can fill. So we fill in very thin layers and constantly compact them all the way to the top. Next, we lay out the guide pipes for alignment. This controls the amount of sand we pour in. This is one of those stages where guys sometimes make a mistake and use too much sand. Sand is a great building material , but because it has no binding components, it can slip. So, if you push on the corner of a block or pavers, it can cause the tile to shift. Therefore, we limit the depth of the sand layer to 3/4 to 1 inch. No more than that . Simply put, we call the row that runs along the perimeter of the patio the edge row, and everything inside it the field. The edge row can be made of a single layer of bricks or a double layer. The edge row can also differ in color from the field or harmonize with it. We try to provide the client with different options and show different photos. So that in the end they get exactly what they imagined. In this case, we are making a solid border and a multi-colored fill. When we pour the sand, level it, and put it in place, you'll notice that we do n't step on it. In fact, we are so careful with sand that we use the "click and throw" method when laying tiles. And now I'll show you what I mean . So, friends. I promised to demonstrate to you the importance of the " click and drop" method. This is how we lay our paving stones. We don't want to break it. Imagine this is sand. We don't want to damage this sandy foundation. We lift the block until it touches, throw it, and let go. Click and throw. Click, throw. OK. We don't drag them across the surface. We don't put them here and move them into place. If we do this, while moving blocks , look here. Do you see this? And if it were sand, it would get lost, which would lead to unevenness. Now look at this block. I also felt a void here. So now my patio will look like this . Not much, but a little. With the "click and throw" method, we hold the block over the material. He doesn't touch anything. And then boom, throw and let go. This is " click and throw". So, guys. So last week, we laid the rest of the paving stones. We built our patio. We got it done in a day, it was awesome. No trimming, even better. So, the plan for today is to start installing stairs along this spot. We are going to install these stairs as close together as possible. To get a tight seam, we cut off the irregularities on the edges of the blocks, but only on the hidden sides. These stairs have a rough surface on three sides. And at the owner's request, they should be double and fit snugly. So, there will be two stairs there, and there will be three stairs there. These materials are not designed for such use. So we try to align them as best we can, but there will still be a gap. So, we have what we have. So now we go back to the first video where we talked about setting the patio at the correct height so that the step height on the first stone is equal to the height from the top of that stone to the decking. On the other side of this project, we have two stone steps that also need to match the decking level. Warm. Hey, it's warm. Hey, it's warm. That's it. The straps are used because we don't want to scratch, damage, or ruin these stone steps. These are not real steps made of natural stone. In fact, these are prefabricated stone steps. So if we scratch them, there will be a noticeable difference in texture under the top layer of stone. If we were building a wall out of natural boulders or something similar, we wouldn't be so careful, as these scratches usually blend into the surface, as the stones are all the same structure inside . But with aggregate, what's underneath the top layer isn't always the same as what you see on the surface. So, an interesting event happened on our patio . A caiman turtle came to us to lay its eggs. on the curb. Look at this dinosaur-like creature. Heading back to the river. This is simply an incredible and amazing animal. This is a common caiman turtle, and it's actually quite small. Its shell seems to be about 40–45 centimeters long. I have seen the shells of these creatures reach over 60 centimeters in diameter. So yeah, an interesting start to the day. This turtle was here laying eggs, and it's already gone. The mother turtle returned to the depths of her aquatic home. We're going to start cleaning this up from the side and front. So we need to start importing black soil and leveling it all. We thought we might move these eggs here, but my sister is a veterinarian, she talked to the exotic animal specialists at work, and they advised us not to touch them . So we will work carefully, bypassing this place. If you remember the first video, this is the side where we came across unknown underground communications. Unfortunately, we were unable to dig them deep enough to make a solid foundation under the patio. Therefore, we decided to choose natural stone steps on this side as well to complete the landscape design. One of the challenging elements when laying a natural stone path is the difference in the thickness of the stones themselves and their sizes. You really need the same thickness as this will speed up the installation process. We purchase materials from a local family-owned company in Minnesota called Patio Town. But such natural stone can be found from many different suppliers. The only thing you should definitely pay attention to is that all the stones have the same thickness. This is the key to quick installation, as it is much easier to lay stones of the same thickness without digging and leveling each one separately. So what did we do today? Joey and I brought the rest of the stone here. The curbs are installed. The stones are in place. Everything is leveled except for the nest with the turtle eggs. We did it yesterday. Everything is covered with stones. Everything is ready here. We set up our little barrier. Well , the next stage. We're going to level things up here again . Sprinkle a little black soil. This area was our work area, but it was also a work area for a company that was building a fishing lodge by the river. And we see that there are many materials there that are unsuitable for growing a new lawn. All of this was filmed and taken out in the first video. And now we will import black soil, level this area, and prepare it for sowing. Our hydraulic bucket is unavailable, so we're doing everything the old-fashioned way . We spread the material , level it with a rake by hand, and step back, as if we were painting the floor in a room while leaving it. Our last day at the facility. So, all we have left to do is bring in some black soil and level this area. Then we'll just pick out the rocks and other debris from that area near the patio. After that, we will sow the seeds and take our equipment out of here. And that's all. I must say, all these birds simply adore our black soil. They're constantly pulling insects and all that stuff out of there . This is quite interesting. Here's a great example of how we've done it before. We have to be very careful not to drive on black soil more than necessary. So Blaine has to spread this stuff out, and then the guys follow with rakes to level and tidy everything up . He can't drive back and forth over this black soil, because that would compact it more than the rake could loosen later. OK. So, we begin to sow. Joey just flies around the area. We removed the remaining small clumps of grass, stones, and other things from the surface of our black soil. From my own experience, when you sow seeds, you need to use twice the amount per square foot for them to sprout and look like a real lawn. Many may disagree with this . There always seems to be very different opinions when it comes to turf, but this is our experience, this is how we do it and will continue to do it because it has always worked well. We don't use any planters or anything like that because we were born with two built-in " planters." So we just scatter the seeds with our hands. From this point on, the customer must ensure that the new seeds receive enough moisture. We want it to be moist, but not to the point of being a swamp. Damp, but not muddy. We also want to reinforce the area where rainwater from the street can overflow our drainage basin. This is just a precaution, but we laid down a protective tarp for rapid grass germination to stabilize the area from future erosion. OK. Well, let's move on to the next object. And from what I've heard, it's going to be a real beast. This will be a wall. All I know is we're putting up a yard, and there's going to be a nine-foot wall. And it looks like it will be no easy task. But we'll see when we get there . Oh, okay. They turned on the watering of the seeds. Wonderful . Look at this. OK. So, if you remember, we leveled everything here all the way to the street. We wanted to lay down rolled lawn, but that turned out to be a bit out of our budget, so we sowed seeds. And here is the result. See ? So Sam isn't really kidding. The next project they are going to take on is "Bearcat." It's a 9-foot-tall retaining wall, but it's no ordinary retaining wall. We're going to have to rebuild the entire yard while we build the 9-foot wall, because the yard technically doesn't exist. They have a hill that tapers off at the back of the lot. They want us to build a 9-foot retaining wall along the entire back edge of the lot, then bring in soil to level it and make a yard for them. Since we are building this facility, we have to do the work in stages. We need to bring in soil while building the retaining wall. A 9-foot wall will require four to five layers of geogrid laid horizontally 9 to 11 feet behind the face of the wall. The bottom layer of mesh, if it is the base, will be at the 1–2 foot mark. And it will stretch 9-11 feet. And then 2 feet higher. So between the three and four foot marks there will be a second layer. Then the third layer, the fourth and finally the fifth layer of geogrid. We need to bring in, distribute, and compact about 1,000 -1,200 cubic yards of soil during the construction of the wall. So if you're interested in seeing how we execute such large-scale projects and coordinate structural elements with construction, let us know in the comments below. Also, I just want to thank you guys. I see you putting likes and I tell you, it helps a lot, I see your comments and support and I really appreciate all your efforts. So thank you for all of this. I hope you enjoyed today's video. If you found it helpful in any way, let me know and I will use this feedback to make more videos like this for you. God's blessings to you, and forward to new achievements. I hope to see you in the next video.