Brent, This is an excellent question that has many answers. One needs to look no further than directly above in this thread to the posting of the photo by Prairie Love to garner an answer. It is always a little disconcerting to me that this is a forum where we have the opportunity to explore the issues of designing landscapes. Yet, just by the realities of the inescapable human element, we spend an inordinate amount of time not discussing design per se but rather the all-too-frequent real life situation of: I inherited this mucked-up mess... Now what do I do? Quoting Thomas Church, "Landscaping is not a complex and difficult art to be practiced only by high priests. It is logical, down-to-earth and aimed at making your plot of ground produce exactly what you want and need from it." If you are familiar with my writings over the years, you will recognize that I encourage people to use their minds. I really do have an abiding faith that the average person is more than up to the task of designing a pleasantly functional landscape if a bit of time is devoted to both study and thought. Sure abilities and results will vary. Joe and Jolene Average may never have the skill set to handle complicated, high-end projects. However, it is easily within Joe and Jolene AverageÂs abilities to avoid the common design blunders that we repeated time and time again on this very forum. If they need some further inspiration, they should not be afraid to consult a pro. As a society, we have largely abdicated our vital role in the decision-making processes of residential living. We have stood by on the sidelines, refusing to get involved until after the fact. Much of the siting and design decisions have been sloughed off to some contractor whose skills lay in pounding nails. When things really get bad, government gets involved and ordains codes where Âone size fits allÂ. All that one really has to do is go on some of the model home tours and you will quickly and objectively begin sort the wheat from the chaff. I suggest not doing this when you are actually in need of a house. Remove the pressure of time constraints. This exercise is best undertaken as research, not selection. Pretty soon you will find yourself asking; ÂWhy in the world did they do that? Or; ÂIf they would have only done it this way, then You soon begin to see what works smoothly and what doesnÂt. Magically, good design will rise to the surface like cream in the old milk can. As I have already stated, Brent, there are many answers to your question. Of course, each of those answers is site specific. Quite frankly, for many of the existing homes already mucked up, there remains no cost effective solution at this time. Throw enough money at it and most any problem can be made to go away. However, the law of diminishing returns soon kicks in. Problems are often cheaply avoided but can quickly become prohibitively expensive after the fact. For example, just down the block from me, a new home is going up on a corner lot that is almost of mirror image of my lot. My wife and I settled for nothing less than a corner lot. It is the only way to get away from the ÂWelcome to my garage" look with the typically small lots available today. Here was a perfect opportunity. The spec contractor just slapped the garage on the front of the house out of habit. The cost of the house would not have been increased a single cent to implement this bit of design forethought. It is too late now! IronBelly ...Nice job, Linlee.

Cambridge did zero for us. They sent out a guy to inspect and basically told us it was an install issue. That is bologney because as mentioned we had dark gray ones that nothing happened to using the same install method. Also we had extra pavers left over on a pallet that sat out through the winter and the same thing happened to the ones on top of the pallet. Cambridge told me they would try to get me a deal if I wanted to purchase new pavers from them but they never responded to any of my follow up emails or calls. Their customer service and guarantee is a joke.

1. If you have had settling after waiting that long it may continue to settle for an even longer time. That may mean that it was not compacted in layers properly to begin with. This is more common than not IMO. 2. Not an expert but it is a good idea to leave and expansion gap. If the far side of the pavers is contained by a concrete edge I would say this is more important. If by a metal or plastic strip, hopefully that gives vs. the coping getting pushed loose. 3. Yes a fine sand is all I have ever seen. It is also a good idea to seal it every year or two (and add sand if needed) if you have a problem of weeds coming up in it too bad. Check w/ the manufacturer of the pavers on the above. They should have a tech answer line that may be helpful. Here in TX with clay soil they can shift with settling and by repeated changes of the ground moisture (in the north maybe by freeze cycles too). This can be avoided by you watching the contractor compact the back fill in maximum 6 inch layers. Then make sure it has the proper 6 inch gravel base for good drainage. The base should be compacted also. Sometimes a landscape fabric is used to protect the gravel from dirt and this fabric may also help to distribute the load from "weak" areas of the ground to avoid settling there. It is highly unlikely that they used 6" of base since that costs lots of cash just for the gravel! If you really think settling will be a problem (like on a driveway for sure); do the base plus 2 inches (min.) of concrete with a fiber additive in the concrete. The fiber additive is well worth the $20/cu. yd. fee. It is like mini rebars all over in the concrete. As for being ripped off... Guess it depends how much you paid. If it was $6-10/sq. ft. and the problems are fairly minor and can each be fixed you came out OK! If you paid $10-15/sq.ft. then I would expect a better base & it being more perfect. Ask for a 2 yr. warranty. 1 yr. is not long enough to see the problem areas.

I had 24” square pavers at my mid mod house with roughly 4” between them. The front was a large terrace that spanned the front of the house and connected to the driveway with grass between the Stones. The rear of the house we had pebbles between the stones. The grass required lots of edging, the pebbles were a total pita that I would be unlikely to do again- constant use of a leaf blower to keep all the leaves and bits out of the pebbles.