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My neighbor said to put pavers on sand and skip the base, now my patio is a roller coaster
My next door neighbor Ray has lived on this street in Tucson since 1988 and he swore up and down I didn't need gravel under my pavers, just pack the sand and lay them down. I trusted him because the guy has done every project on his own house for 30 years. That was 7 weeks ago and now 4 pavers in the middle of my 10x12 patio rock back and forth when you step on them, and one corner has already sunk about half an inch. I pulled one up to check and the sand is gone, just washed into the dirt below from the rain we got in early March. The part that kills me is I bought 2 tons of road base and it's still sitting in a pile behind my shed. So do I rip the whole thing up now while it's only 4 pavers, or wait and see if the rest settle too? Anyone else ever get talked out of the right way by someone who meant well?
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hernandez.gavin7d ago
Man, I feel this in my bones. My brother in law talked me into laying a walkway on just tamped sand back in 2019 and by the next spring every single stone was rocking like a seesaw. Water just eats that sand away, it drains down and leaves nothing under there, which is exactly what happened to you after that March rain. You already got the road base sitting there, so rip up the four that move now before the edges start dropping too, because once one corner sinks the water pools there and speeds up the whole mess. I learned the hard way that doing it twice costs way more than doing it right the first time, and Ray probably got lucky with his soil or his spot never held water.
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