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Landscape Design

Pavers -quality & differences between brands

10 years ago

Cambridge, Belgard, Uni-lock, Capitol, techno-bloc and
Capitol are the brands sold around here. Can anyone tell me if they differ in quality? Does anyone know if through color or a top color is better? (We do get snow.) Does anyone have experience with any of these brands - pro or con? Thanks.

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Yardvaark

10 years ago

I would suggest you use integral color instead of face color. While pavers hold up for a long time, any concrete weathers and wears, so eventually, and gradually, the face will slowly give way to what's underneath. I don't know of any table that compares different manufacturer's pavers to one another over the course of a long time. You can imagine that doing such a study would be an expensive, time consuming operation and of questionable value if any changes, no matter how minute, are made to the mix. (And it's not likely that any organization would have incentive to perform such a study.) Each manufacturer is trying to say theirs is better because they add some armour-like or diamond-like ingredient. I would not fall for the gimmicks, but accept the fact that you're buying concrete and that concrete is a good material that will last a long time. It would be difficult to stay in business if one's product was not on par with the competition, so it's not likely that there are any manufacturers who offer a bad product when measuring like comparables. However, I would avoid the thin "pavers" offered by big box stores, especially the ones in which coarse aggregates are visible.

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Yardvaark
10 years ago
duplicate post deleted

This post was edited by Yardvaark on Wed, Aug 7, 13 at 10:23
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violetwest
10 years ago
I checked Consumer Reports for you, but concrete pavers weren't on there
elyash
Original Author
10 years ago
Thank you very much. Two masons recommended Cambridge so I will see if I like the colors. I never know if that is because they can get a better price on the pavers or they really think they are better quality.
marcinde
10 years ago
" I never know if that is because they can get a better price on the pavers or they really think they are better quality."

There's only a couple bucks/sq ft difference between the good pavers (Techo-Bloc) and the garbage pavers (Belgard). Unless his cousin Vinny found some pallets that "fell off the back of a truck" there's no massive moneymaker in what someone recommends, it's just what that contractor has experience with, and confidence in.

I tend to spec Techo-Bloc because I like their product, I'm good friends with a couple of former Techo reps who continue to speak highly of it, and I think the QPR is good. I've looked at Cambridge. It looks fine, I just have no experience with it.
amyhlr
last year
last modified: last year
I realize this is an old thread, but I am responding to add new information. When I renovated my patio 12 years ago (2010) my contractor used Capitol Pavers. The company had been around for 4 generations, ,so I had confidence that this was a good product. the result was a beautiful patio. Fast forward to 2016, we decided to remove the solid concrete around our pool and replace it with pavers. We used the same contractor, who told us that Capitol had gone out of business, so we would not be able to match the existing pavers on the patio. We chose a Cambridge product, completely different from the existing patio. Here we are now, 5 years later, and the original pavers from 2010, now 12 years old, are crumbling around the edges. The original warranty on these pavers was a lifetime warranty. I guess lifetime is more about the life of the manufacturer, not the lifetime of the paver. I have no recourse because the company is out of business and the pavers are no longer being made. I was told by an installer that Capitol had problems with several batches of their products which began to decompose over time, and that's why they went out of business. So my options are basically 1) Replace all of the existing patio pavers or 2) Sit around and watch the existing patio pavers decompose.

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