Landscape contractors providing custom landscaping services for Tri Cities WA (Richland, Pasco & Kennewick Washington)

Brick Pavers Are A Great Landscaping Option

This blog is written on well over 20 years of  paver construction, and landscaping experience serving both Walla Walla, Washington and Richland, Pasco, Kennewick  (the Tri Cities WA areas), also outlying towns like Dayton, and Waitsburg WA.  But the primary knowledge needed before you start your brick paver project is pretty universal, anywhere.

As with any home improvement you make to your landscaping, you will hopefully raise the value of your home, or you could also lower its value. You could hire a professional brick paver contractor to build a very beautiful, and structural, paver patio, driveway, steps, or sidewalks for your yard. No mater the variety of pavers you choose to have installed in your yard, the decision to hire a professional brick, or stone paver contractor to install your new paver project will definitely add a great deal of benefit to you, and your family for years to come. So it is a very important decision you make, weather to do the instillation of the brick pavers yourself, or hire a pro brick paver contractor.

This blog covers in depth the pros and cons of the wide range of  available brick, stone, and cement pavers available for your next home improvement project, and the locations you could construct your new brick paver job in your landscaping from:

Brick patiosBrick paver drivewaysPavers around pools
Landscape paver pathwaysSteps & stairwaysPavers for hardscaping
Sidewalk brick paversNatural stone paversBrick paver fire pits
Flagstone paversRock paversPermeable pavers
Cobblestone paversStone paversCement pavers

If you d0 the brick or rock paving work yourself, be honest with yourself as to your experience, and knowledge in building a well designed, attractive, and structural completed job with brick pavers. I strongly blame the DIY shows, and information out there for the vast majority of screwed up settling, paver jobs out there. Those shows make it look easy, but if you miss one critical part of the job, you will pay a very big price for your mistake.

But the simple facts are you, need to have many, many years of experience to draw up a detailed blueprint for your brick, rock, or concrete paver job.  You also need the knowledge in how to properly install your pavers, so that your patio, driveway, or side walk will look great, but most importantly stand the test of time.

The same way any professional home improvement landscaping project gets done correctly, you need to follow these common sense guidelines to get your project done right, and on budget. 

 

Here are the 10 of the most important things you need to know before building any type of either brick, stone, or concrete paver job:

1. What are the local codes in you city, or covenants pre existing in your subdivision, and do you need a permit

This is obviously very important, to find out. Your pro paver contractor should know immediately what are the codes in your area. You definitely do not want to spend a bunch of money on your new brick paver patio, only to find out you will have to pay a fine, by the city, or pay to remove your paver job. Also remember some neighbor hoods do have additional paver regulations, on what type of pavers you can have installed.

2. Hire a professional brick paver contractor

I have written some very helpful guidelines in my landscaping blog, for you to look at before you hire your next paver contractor. The blog is: Hiring a great garden landscaping contractor (see link at bottom of this blog).  This is also a very useful blog to read before hiring any paver, or construction contractor.

3. Get a detailed blueprint

This is a definite must before you install any brick, stone, or cement pavers. You need to now exactly where your pavers will be installed. This way you have time to think about your job before it is started. It is also good to have your pro brick paver contractor flag, or spray paint out the area where your pavers will be, so you can get a more accurate feel for where your bricks will be. Also place chairs, tables, out in this area to get a better grip on the size and usability of your completed paver job.

4. What is under your pavers!

Your Professional paver contractor should immediately want to know what is under the pour, but I am sorry to say that most of your budget, and inexperienced contractors will not care about this. They just want to get in, get paid, and get out. Which could easily leave you with a wide range of paver nightmares down the road. Lets say a pipe breaks, under your patio pavers, and you have to remove your brick or stone paver work to get to it. I strongly recommend that drain field lines, sprinkler lines, or anything else under your slab, be moved to the side of the slab, for very obvious reasons. (some sprinkler, or drain field, lines could be left under the patio, sidewalk, or driveway paver job, only if you trust the quality of your pipes) its your decision to make.

5. Now it is down to the easy part of picking out the type of brick, stone, or concrete pavers you want 

Here the sky is almost the limit. Most of the paver jobs out their right now, are brick pavers. Brick pavers are just about the most durable, and economical  paving product out there, going threw a factory baking process. Also usually the most affordable, and with the most paterns available. Natural Rock, stone, flagstone pavers, are usually the hardest to work with, and usually cost the most, but the reward is that you are working with a natural product, which to me is landscaping. Also remember that some natural stones (flagstones) for example do flake off. There are also some larger pre fabricated cement, or concrete, pavers out on the market right now, which because they are bigger, are a little easier to install. I also like the additional thickness of these concrete pavers, for a better quality paver job.

6. Color used in your brick, stone, or concrete paver job

This decision should be based on your personal taste, or you could go on the recommendations of your professional paver contractor. Their really is not that much difference in cost for the color, or mix of colors used in the paver you decide to go with.

7. Choose a paver design or look 

There are literally hundreds of designs, or patterns you could chose for your paver, driveway, or sidewalk. Your pro paver contractor should be able to show you these options, to help you find the design that best suits your job. Most pavers are manufactured in different sizes, either perfectly square, or rectangular. There are also pavers manufactured out their for circle patios, and to make unique angled designs in pathways, patio’s, side walks. These pavers are pre-built for these tasks, and require minimal cutting for your paver job.

8. Paver footings are very important 

A footing, is simply the amount of compacted rock product used below your pavers. You should consult your pro paver contractor, as to the thickness, and the size of rock he will use below your pavers. Load bearing pavers like driveways obviously need a deeper footing, than non load bearing pavers (or not as heavy load bearing pavers) like patios, and sidewalks. Here at Ace Landscaping we take our work very seriously, and take pride in overbuilding all our paver jobs, way above and beyond what other contractors are doing in this Walla Walla WA, and Tri City Washington areas are doing to follow code. We may not be the cheapest contractors in the game, but we definitely turning out some of the best brick paver work in this area.

9. Drainage of your completed paver job

All paver jobs should slope slightly, at roughly a one inch drop every 5 to 10 feet, depending on the job, so that their will be no standing water on your completed paver job, and the water will drain away from your home. Your pro paver contractor, should immediately be knowledgeable about this very important part of the job.

10. Watch the job 

Now if you have followed even half of the guidelines listed above, you will be 100 times ahead of your average customer. The only last thing I would recommend is to, “ if you have the time” to watch your job being done, or at the very least, pop in on your lunch break, to inspect your paver landscaping job in progress. This will not only give you very valuable knowledge about your job, but will help prevent any mistakes from occurring on your job, or catch these mistakes before they become huge mistakes. I know all of this seems like a lot of work on your part, but my hope is that you will not only be able to hire a good, but a great brick paver contractor, on your next landscaping project.

 

Now that you have done your brick paver homework, and hired a professional paver job for your yard, it’s time to sit back and enjoy a job well done.  I hope this paver information has been of help to you.

Please contact Ace Landscaping if you would like more detailed information on brick, stone, or concrete pavers, or any of the other landscaping service we provide. We would like the chance to earn your business for years to come.

Thanks for reading my landscaping blog!

John Palmer, Landscaper
John Palmer