Tips for laying down pavers in the front deck?

[fuzzybabybunny]

So my parents got paving supplies delivered... without doing any kind of research on how to properly pave anything. They thought it would just be as simple as exposing the dirt, using a hand tamper to compact the soil, sprinkle on some sand, lay down paver stones, and add in some polymeric sand.

They've got a 11 x 16 ft area to pave. It needs to drain away from the house. They got enough paver stones, but they're about 50 bags short of the sand (they bought 10), thinking that a sprinkling of sand would certainly be enough...

I've never paved anything before. The videos on YouTube vary from complicated (building wooden frames, using Caterpillars, etc) to suspiciously simple.

They live in Ohio with freezing winters, so water infiltration is a factor. They're looking to do this on a budget. I can tell you now that they'll just give up if they have to excavate 6 inches down and fill it with 60 cubic feet of gravel first.

So... questions:

- The soil is hard compacted clay, so drainage sucks. They've already got it graded away from the house though (have no idea what the slope is, but it's slight).

- Can we get away with just pouring and leveling 1" of leveling sand directly onto the clay? Or is 2" necessary? Or do we have to dig 6" down and pour in gravel first?

- When we lay the paver stones, can their edges be fully touching each other? The polymetric sand directions say to leave a 1/4" gap between stones, but all the professional YouTube videos I've seen show contractors just laying the pavers side to side.

- Can the paver stones (1ft x 1ft x 1.5in) be laid in a perfectly straight grid pattern, not the typical offset pattern? They have no desire to rent a saw to cut masonry.

- Can we get by with just a hand tamper, and not renting a vibrating compactor?

- Is it necessary to build a wooden frame of some sort?

 

[Greenman]

The answer to all of your questions is a question. How long do you want it to look good? You can just throw the pavers on the dirt and call it a day. It will look like pavers thrown on the dirt. Throw an inch of sand down first and it might look ok for a year. But if you want it to look good long term you have to go through all of the steps. Dig out the soil, place and compact base rock, place and compact sand, then place the stones. They also need some sort of border to keep the edge stones from moving. A layer of filter fabric under the gravel is a good idea as well.
My attitude is that if your not going to do it right, don't bother. Why spend a bunch of time and money on a job that's going to look bad?

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

The answer to all of your questions is a question. How long do you want it to look good? You can just throw the pavers on the dirt and call it a day. It will look like pavers thrown on the dirt. Throw an inch of sand down first and it might look ok for a year. But if you want it to look good long term you have to go through all of the steps. Dig out the soil, place and compact base rock, place and compact sand, then place the stones. They also need some sort of border to keep the edge stones from moving. A layer of filter fabric under the gravel is a good idea as well.
My attitude is that if your not going to do it right, don't bother. Why spend a bunch of time and money on a job that's going to look bad?

My parents are retiring soon and probably want to sell the house, so possibly three years or less. They bought all this stuff because water infiltrates the basement walls in this area, so they want to build a paved deck over this area to act as a rain block and funnel rain away.

I've heard that laying pavers directly on clay is a bad idea. It looks and feels compact now, but as soon as it rains it'll turn into a slippery mess. We're going to definitely do edge retention as well as lay down landscape fabric (they probably can't be bothered to do geofabric since we have a massive roll of landscape fabric laying around).

Would 2 inches of sand on top of landscape fabric on top of hand-tamped clay last three years in a very low-traffic deck area?

 

[NutBucket]

IMHO no. Even in SoCal you gotta go with a solid 4" of base + an inch or so of sand on top of that for it to look good.

 

[Greenman]

I don't know how long it will last. Freezing clay is something I've never dealt with. But that last bit of information (water through the basement walls) is another problem entirely.

 

[Rifter]

I worked landscape for a year in high school. I wouldnt even try this without a good 3" of gravel topped with few inches compacted sand. Otherwise its going to end up looking bad in less than 2 years.

May as well do it right as opposed to half assing it and then having to tear it out and redo it in a year or two. Way easier and much less work to do it right the first time.