How to install your own paver driveway: part 3 paver selection

For the last blog I discussed the sub-base.  For this blog I will discuss paver selection.   For this discussion this link is very informative.

In  my area there is Landscape Depot, they sell flagstone pavers (link) and they have an in ground display.  The flagstone paver website is very nice and there are a lot of pictures to look at and get ideas. Unfortunately, the paver I picked was not in Landscape Depot's in ground display and when I wanted some samples to put next to my house they told me the minimum order was a 1.5 ton pallet which is about $300 for 110 square feet of pavers.  Ordering $2000 of pavers (8 pallets) based on catalog / internet pictures is risky because they will for sure look different when they arrive at your house.  So no dice once again with Landscape Depot.

Anyway when I had talked with the dump truck driver he had mentioned a company named Coastal an old castle company in Orlando (link).  They are a dealer for Belgard pavers.  I looked into them and found out that they too have an in ground display.  I made the hour drive and their display was better than Landscape Depot's dispaly because they had numbers on the pavers that could be looked up on a guide to tell people what the pavers were.   Also the pavers and the colors  I was interested in were on display.  They had about 60 paver installations on display some of which are shown below.

 

I was also able to get a few samples of the colors I was interested in (but not the size) free of charge.  So I ended up with two aragon, two harvest blend and two chestnut pavers.  They had quite a big yard with alot of pavers in stock as can be seen in the pics below.

I took these pavers home and realized there was an issue.  First the colors I picked would be slightly different for each paver block.  This is on purpose and adds variation to the pavers in the driveway and it makes the driveway look nicer.  But my small sample was not big enough to see this variation and how it would look.  I took pictures of the displays I had seen so I looked at those and then encountered my second problem.  I was using a $20 phone with a terrible camera.   The colors were in no way what I saw with my eyes.  A display that looked magnificent with my eyes looked like an ordinary sidewalk in the pictures.  That was the last straw with the phone I had and I bought a better phone that has a better camera that very day.  I was not particularly impressed with the paver colors I had selected and was wishing I had picked up an amaretto color as well.

I decided to investigate Lowes and they actually had pavers that were not on their website.  They had Belgard Trinity Pavers (amaretto), Country Manor pavers (sand /tan) and Providence pavers (harvest blend).  The trinity pavers had three different sizes and a beveled edge.  The other pavers had a textured surface that mimics slate.  I bought 6 samples of all three varieties and tried them up against the house.

Shown below is the country manor pavers.

 

Then the Trinity (on the left) looks like a non tumbled paver and Providence pavers (on the right) are shown below

 

The price for these pavers from Lowe's is expensive.  For the Trinity pavers they come in at  $3.42 a square foot.  Where as the the Coastal pricing is about $2.25 per square foot and $228 for delivery so when all said and done about $2.50 a square foot.  However, a call to the Lowes pro desk may change the price on the trinity when I tell them I need 8 pallets.

One thing I noticed when fiddling with the pavers is the pattern has a big influence on how the pavers look.  Concentrating on the trinity pavers here are a few patterns to look at that may not be fully complete patterns due to the limited number of samples.   Below is a T pattern or half an I pattern.

 

 Next we have a running board pattern.

This pattern reminds me of the Ashler pattern

Out of all these pavers I have sampled there are a few things that I like.  I like the beveled edge on the Trinity pavers and I also like the larger size.  The beveled edges provide and accent and when I look at paver driveways with pavers that have flush edges it is not as pleasing to the eye,  The biggest paver in the trinity series is 9.8" by "14.7".  To me the larger size looks better and I dislike driveways with too much detail.  Also, although I have the garage to work on my car in, the larger pavers will offer less resistance to rolling my jack around and the beveled edge will be less prone to chipping.

Anyway, after fiddling around with paver colors I realized that maybe I should select a house color scheme.   I would hate to put pavers in and find out that later on the house paint color I want does not match the pavers I installed.   To help with this I went driving around some of the neighborhoods and found the houses with grey/silver roofs with paver driveways.   Here are a few pics of some very nice color schemes.

The picture shows a greenish/blueish house with tan/white/charcoal pavers

Then we have the light yellow house with tan/white/charcol pavers

 

Then there is the grey house with the more grayish pavers

 

And the white house with grayish pavers

 

Then there is the brownish/green green house

 

The greenish/blueish house is a little dark but I think that is my favorite especially since the paver driveway looks exceptionally nice.

Anyway, another way of going about it is to use a picture of the house and then import it into the Belgard paver driveway visualizer at this link   They allow you to put in various pavers, paver colors and patterns.  Since I hadn't picked the color of the house yet I decided to take my picture and experiment with different colors in the Valspar painting tool at this link.

In the tool I can select different colors from a large color palette for the house exterior.  However, my picture has a lot of shadows so that it is difficult to use the tool to paint the exterior nicely.   It was splotchy.

I decided to abandon the Valspar tool and use the software I bought a long time ago known as chief architect home designer (which can be purchased at this link).  Before I started the two permits I developed a 3D model of my vision for the house in this program.  To get an idea of what can be done in home designer see this 3D animation I made of the house at this link.


Home designer allows me to change the colors of the house in the model and take screen shots which I then import into the Belgard paver driveway tool.  Here are some results starting with a picture of the house and a simulated paver driveway and then continuing on with the screenshot pictures from home designer imported into the paver driveway drawing tool.

At this point I am getting a better understanding of what looks good but don't know the actual color of the house and pavers I will choose.

Some basic concepts that I understand and am working with are that sometimes there cane be too much of one color.  If the roof, house color and driveway is all the same color then it will not look good.  I am considering the fact that the lawn will be green and that a green house of the same color would probably be too much green.

Another point is that to break up color schemes it is good idea to mix light colors with darker colors.  Like pavers that are sand/tan color would work better with a darker colored house and harvest blend colors (darker) work better with light colored houses.

Another point is that only certain colors work with grey roofs.  I think a grey roof is actually kind of a tough color to work with.  But that's what I have and there are some good options nevertheless.  But on the other hand if you look at my garage from the road the grey roof is pretty well hidden.

Anyway, the amount of things to consider for paver selection is turning out to be quite enormous.  This only means that it will take me longer to come up with what I want to to do.  I am definitely forming some opinions though and am in no rush.  I am of the opinion that it is better to do the job right rather than rush it and be unhappy with the result.  To see what paver I decided on check out my next blog.

Until next time, 

Happy Building,

The Dr.

How to install your own paver driveway: part 2 sub-base installation.

In the previous blog I discussed the excavation of the driveway to prepare for the paver installation. This blog is about placing the sub-base.

For the sub-base I chose road base or 1.5" crushed concrete.  Code requires 4 inches of crushed concrete (3/8" ?) or similar material for the sub-base and paver base combined.  But when I talked to the inspector he wanted 6".  But the book driveways, paths and patios by Tony McCormack implied that 6" of sub-base and an additional 1 to 2 inches of paver base materiel / bedding on top.  Anyway since I excavated 10" I put in 6" of sub-base leaving 4" for the paver base / bedding and the pavers (pavers are 2 and 3/8" thick).

The crushed concrete costs about $16 a ton which is about 1.3 yards and I ordered 17 yards.   I ended up paying $370 for the entire load.  I saved money because I shopped around.  Landscape depot offers crushed concrete for $60 a yard plus the delivery charge of $50 dollars which would have been $1070.  Got to watch your prices!  Even so I like Landscape Depot because there are some neat varieties of stone and rock there and I might one day buy something there.

On a Friday I received delivery of the sub-base shown below.

The driver of the dump truck was kind to me.  Because there was a 10" ledge he could not dump the sub-base into the middle of the driveway in fact a majority of it would have ended up in the street except he had a trick.  First he dumped some of the load at the driveway edge and then he backed is truck up on it and dumped the rest.  This in effect distributed the crushed concrete on about half the driveway.  Quite the time saver!  Below is picture of the sub-base from the other side where you can see the dump truck tire marks.

After he dumped the crushed concrete, I socialized with him because he had brought me some fill before for the concrete pads I had installed (see this blog).  He said I had done a lot of work on the house.   Anyway, after some chit chat I picked his brain on paver installation.  He actually knew quite alot.   He recommend to spread the sub-base with a concrete kumalong or concrete placer and a wide landscape rake. These are shown below.

 

By the way when you buy tools remember that Kobalt (Lowe's brand) or Husky (Home depot's brand) have lifetime warranties.   I have gotten several tape measures and even a wheel barrow for free when the ones I originally bought broke.  Lowe's has the 5% discount every time you use their credit card so Lowe's usually wins out with me.

 The next step was distributing the 20 toms of material.  In doing this I had to be accurate with my distribution because if I under filled a spot I would have to roll the wheel barrow over the crushed concrete which is soft and that is difficult.  So right up front I figured a way to get a proper amount of material on the geotextile covered driveway surface.  What I did is use a depth guide.  I made this out of a concrete block and two weights on top which is about 6" high.  This is shown in the picture below.

 

This method worked out really well and the only reason it did so good was because I was very accurate with the excavation.  Sometimes starting off a project right and with quality work can save you a lot of time an effort later on.

Once all the crushed concrete was distributed I did the final grading.  Instead of putting stakes and string lines in and measure down from the string lines like I did for the excavation, I used a laser level which I placed on the garage floor and angled down towards the curb at the entrance so that the laser beam matched the grade of the driveway.  I did this technique on the left, right and middle of the driveway.   I used the tape measure and measured down from the laser beam and made the adjustments to the fill.  The depth guides had got it pretty close.

All the adjustments that involved the laser level were made with the concrete placer.  With this device I was able to get the driveway to the correct height to within plus or minus a quarter of an inch.  After that I went over the entire driveway with the Landscape rake and the final result is shown below.

 

  

The distributing of the sub-base material took 8 hours.  It was a tough eight hours.  Luckily the weather was cool.  My collar bone ended up hurting and my neck and back ached.  However, it was a great work out and it made me feel a little more in shape.

The next step is to tamp the sub-base.   It is recommended to tamp the sub-base for every three or four inches of  sub-base thickness but I decided to tamp it after the entire 6 inches was placed.  I hope that is ok.  I intend to rent the vibratory compactor from home depot again.  I hope to do that next weekend and also get the inspection.  In the next blog I will discuss paver selection.

That's all for now,

Happy Building,

The Dr.

How to install your own paver driveway: part 1 excavation.

Having worked now on my permits for the past 2 years and 1 month, I am nearing completion.  The last project to do is the paver driveway installation.  To get to this point I have finished the boat house which is discussed at this blog, the cedar covered porch which is discussed in this blog and the expansion of a single car garage into a two car garage which is discussed in this blog.

For the paver driveway project, I found the YouTube.com videos lacking so I ordered many used books from Amazon.com for a couple bucks each.   The best book I found (and the most expensive) is Driveways, paths and patios: a complete guide to design management and construction by Tony McCormack and it is available at this link.  Also a good web video reference is at this link which is a series of 12 videos on how to install Belgard pavers.  This link is interesting but I think there are some inaccuracies in the reference.

For the first step I planned the driveway by drawing it in Visio.  This is shown below:

Once it was drawn, the next step was to lay out the perimeter for excavation.  I did this by using stakes and string lines.

Excavating the driveway mainly means getting rid of the organic materials and digging deep enough so that the sub-base, base and pavers can be installed to the right height.  For my application 10" excavation was what I decided to do.  This is so that 6" of subbase, 1.5" of base and 60 mm (about 2-3/8")  of pavers could be placed on top of the sub-grade.  For code I only need about 4" of sub-base/base, but I talked to the inspector and he wanted 6" sub-base/base.  But then I read the book and it suggests 8" sub-base/base and that is what I went with.  To ensure my depth was not too deep and not to shallow I used string lines from the garage to the curb at the street and measured in several areas to verify the depth as I was excavating.

For the excavation I had a choice, use muscle or machine.  If I used a machine like a skid steer which I could rent from Home Depot (see link) for $450 a day I could have the job done easily in one day.

However,  I chose muscle because I viewed this as an opportunity to get in some very good exercise without the expense of a gym membership and at the same time not having to pay for the excavating equipment.  A pro would probably have gone for the machine, but I am desk jockey and it turns out sitting at a desk for 9 hours a day is one of the most unhealthy things to do.  According to Dr. James Levine, director of the Mayo Clinic-Arizona State University Obesity Solutions Initiative, “Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV, and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death.”  There is more about the side effects of sitting  at this link.

So I needed some exercise.  I also had gained some weight because my job gave us free unhealthy lunches and all the snacks we wanted in hopes we would work overtime and get the project done by the dead line.  So weighing in at 180 lbs on Christmas eve which is right at the point where a person my height is over weight I was not happy.  I decided to go on a diet at the same time that I was getting exercise from the excavation to turbocharge the effects on my health that this project would have.

The best diet I know of is the South Beach diet.  The diet has several books with recipes to follow when your on the diet.  They can be obtained used from Amazon.com at this link for a couple of bucks each.  This diet is a low carbohydrate diet with attention to the eating heart healthy by keeping the saturated fat content of the meals low.   Since my cholesterol is high, I kicked it up a notch and ate only vegetarian south beach meals.  I have found that I can lower my cholesterol by 50 points through diet.

The excavation took 21 hours which I spread out over 8 days which happened to be my christmas break.  Ya, that's how I spend my vacations because of the permits.  In addition to the 21 hours to break up the monotony I also did some landscaping, planting my home grown palm tree seedlings (see blog) and sprinkler repair (see this blog for how to work with sprinklers).  The end result of the driveway excavation is shown below.  In the picture some of the strings that were used for depth guides can be seen.

After having excavated the driveway, my muscles are strong as steel once again, its very easy to run a 5K and I've shed 7 pounds of weight.  Large weight loss like this is typical for the south beach diet for the first two weeks where phase 1 of 3 is followed.

For the next step I rented a vibratory compactor from Home Depot and ran it over the sub-grade.

 

After the compaction I laid the geotextile down.  The geotextile (see link) is a woven fabric (in my case 12.5' wide) which helps maintain separation of the sub-base and the sub-grade so that the integrity of the whole structure is maintained.  It helps improve the load bearing capacity of the driveway system and is porous to water.  It is optional but recommended by the two references I have provided for this blog.  Below is a picture of the installed geotextile weighed down so the wind will not take it away.

Well that's my update for now.  For the the next couple of weeks, I hope to accomplish adding the sub-base and then get the inspection.  See the sub-base installation in the next blog.

Until next time,  Next blog.

Happy Building.

The Dr.