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Gardening with Stone

Stone Pavers Patio above grade. How to retain base? (Pics)

16 years ago

Guys, I need your expert opinion. I had a pretty leveled patio installed with a gravel base with leveling sand on top. In order to get it leveled, the patio ended up 6-12 inches above grade in some areas and some areas below grade. I am concerned with the areas above grade. I do not want the sand to erode from rain or wind since it is pretty high above grade. Below are some pictures. What can I do to prevent the sand from running off and the patio falling apart? What should I tell the installers to do? Please so I would not lose sleep over this.

Pictures of the patio. The patio is 6-12 inches above grade

You can see the seat walls sit 8-10 inches above grade and sits on top of sand with edging installed.

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Firepit sits on top of sand without edging

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Closer look of seat walls

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Areas of where gravel shows instead of sand

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Comments (7)

gottagarden
16 years ago
I can't believe your installer did not put edging stone around! Highly unprofessional! I wouldn't think that would survive intact through the first winter. It's trickier to install edging stone AFTER the patio is installed, it should have been done at the time. Two choices that I can see:
- buy edging stone like large pieces of cut granite. Many cities use this kind of stone for curbs. It needs to go below ground level. I have a hard time seeing this work effectively unless you use VERY large pieces now. The problem is that years of water coming through the patio and frost heave will be pushing it out. It should have been installed with a deep foundation and probably mortared together. Might be too late. (your installer never thought of this???)

- you may prefer to get a few loads of topsoil in and have a gentle slope from the patio to the lawn. It would probably be easier, and would nicely eliminate the step from the patio to the grass. To be effective and not look funny, it will have to be a small gradual slope, so you are probably looking at adding topsoil 8 feet or more from the edge of your patio. That is a lot of topsoil but I think would give you nice results.
fatlard
Original Author
16 years ago
I will most likely go with the top soil route. How much do you think it will cost in top soil?
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We had a similar patio installed in our back yard this Spring. I would suggest they rip out your ENTIRE patio and steps and re-do completely, with the concrete gravel base. Sand should be used on top of that base (to level the pavers) and swept and tamped down in-between the pavers. The concrete gravel base should be fairly thick and installed in layers, with a machine that tamps it down in between layers making the base hard as concrete. The concrete gravel base of our patio was even extended at least a foot outside of the patio pavers and an edging was used around the patio shape with large iron "nails" pounded into that base to hold the edge shape. We now have grass growing over that extended base. Sounds like your patio and steps were not installed correctly at all. Good luck!
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We are planning to eventually build out a deck around the other side of the house, but that won't happen for a while (there is a fire escape in the way. It's an old house, and that's a whole other story...). The lot is only ~50-55' wide at that point (pretty densely packed mostly single-family houses), so I think having too large (especially too wide) of a deck would be weird. The half patio/half deck gives a compromise of more useable space without having the deck as the whole outdoor space and running the width of the yard. Rereading your comment, though, are you suggesting to replace the stoop entirely and build the patio up to the stoop stairs? The two-stage plan would give us house-level decking and ground-level patio.
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" ... then take a four foot line level with a square one inch block on the end for the pitch reference." Hmmmm..... I didn't get that at all! I would use the string/line level for excavation .... as a guide for creating a reasonably accurate excavated pit. The pit should be a few inches larger beyond the limits of the finished patio. Tamp the sub base to the desired elevation. The edge of a straight 2x4 could help you determine that the surface is in plane. Set it on the soil, as if you were screeding, and in that process, verify if there are any depressions. Screed in one direction, and go over the whole thing again in a perpendicular direction. And you'll end up with a reasonably in plane surface. Tamp and double check the pitch and also that all depressions are filled. Once it is like a hard floor and at the correct level, install the Brock base. 3/4" PVC pipes -- two of them -- are commonly laid parallel on a tamped base (in this case Brock base) as a guide to screed sand to a 1" thickness, using a 2x4 as a screed board. Since this patio is only 8' x 8', you might could screed nearly the whole thing in one pass. It might be easier, though, if you screed out a 4' width pass, and then move one pipe pole and screed out a second pass for the other half of the patio. The retaining edge will set on the screeded sand base.
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Thanks for the responses! I like the simplification of adding a rubble border - I'm going to think of what I might do in that regard that will fit with existing materials and overall look. As for using the same base for both - I would love to do that and think that 2 1/2" of compacted pavers would provide good enough opposition to support the base course of the wall. The constraint there is that part of the new patio butts up against an existing pool deck, and the pool deck is sloped for drainage around the pool. Matching that pool deck will leave new pavers 2" higher in the middle than on the ends. Using the same base for the (30' long, 30" high) wall means the wall base would also be 2" higher in the middle. Maybe having a wall base 2" higher in the middle than on the ends is no big deal, but since I am not expert enough to know when it is OK to break/bend the rules, I tend to follow them when I can.
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gottagarden
16 years ago
Every area is different, $30 yard delivered here. Call to find out.
inkognito
16 years ago
Cut and fill is landscape construction 101 your guy never took that course, obviously. This is a bad installation that no amount of top soil will cure. Somebody had to say it and I am sorry. It is easy peezy to throw those concrete pavers down and the guy now has your money too probably. You need to take it all up and do it properly or live with the consequences.
botann
16 years ago
It looks to me the plastic retaining edging has been installed and, if done right, will hold the pavers in place. Topsoil added around the perimeter will improve the situation and make a nice planting area.

I like it.
keeptrying
16 years ago
At this point forget about a retaining wall. My opinion would be to carefully remove some of the sand from the sides without loosing any under the base. From my opinion this should be screedings anyway, unless it is and I can't tell from the picture.
1. Remove sand from sides only be carefull not to loose the base under the edging.
2. replace with #8 stone fill around the perimiter while compacting by hand.
3. After getting to the point where the edging won't fall down and collapse, I would get a compactor and work from the outside in carefully.
4. With a remaining 4 inches from the top of the edging I would add topsoil and compact that also .
5. You will have to taper out for quite a distance, more than you think to make sure the topsoil won't erode.
6. Goodluck and a hardluck lesson learned. We all learn the hardway once in our lifetime.
Jan Liang
7 years ago
I would think to build retaining wall around existing patio and 1 feet away. Then fill inside and match to existing patio. This would look good.

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