Expert: Dan Griffin - 9/4/2008

Question
QUESTION: I am looking to hire someone out to build a patio for me in my front yard.  I already have the pavers from a previous patio.  It's going to roughly be 500 square feet and in addition to that I have a crushed stone walkway that needs to be lined with pavers so as to make a retaining wall for the stones.  I will have the stones for that already as well and there is roughly 400 ft altogether on this walkway that needs to be lined.  My question is just wondering what ballpark I should expect in price and roughly where I should plan on spending?

ANSWER: George, it is not the intent of this forum to try to price work in your locale.  I have no idea where you live, no idea what a typical labor rate would be there, nor any way to see preexisting conditons.  The quality of a paver type patio is in the base material and base preparation, the labor is also there and in the paver installation.  I would expect about $3 per SF here if the site is at grade with the sod removed, though I've never priced or thought about using used or owner purchased pavers.  I would be very hesitant to work with used pavers unless you had contract writing stating the contractor to not be responsible for chips and defects.  Unless you intend to make the stone walkway quite a bit larger and adding more stone, I wouldn't touch it.  I don't know how a man can excavate and compact the dirt on each side of  the stone work to be able to install pavers without requiring a major rework of the gravel path.

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QUESTION: The walkway does not have any stone work that needs to be done besides a wall bordering it.  It is made out of crushed stone and I need to border it.  The sod is being removed and pushed around the borders of the house surrounding it so that the space between the ground and the house is filled and able to be planted in.  The actual patio is more close to 700 sq ft. and the pavers are very nice looking and in good shape still to be honest.  I'd appreciate if you could let me know any other information you might have.  Thank you.

Answer
George, good paver work requires establishing very well compacted select  granular fill that is graded to the finish profile at subgrade depth.  If the subgrade has dips or high spots, the finish pavers will have them also.  If your gravel walk has no border now, it probably does not have true edges that lend themselves to laying border pavers directly against the gravel walk.  I think at best you can lay the pavers to the line or curve intended and fill in the voids along the edges of the walkway.  If the subgrade is not well compacted, the pavers will be prone to movement and settling.

My comment about the condition of the used pavers was not to question whether they were good enough to use.  Some owners are very picky about a project when the contractor thinks he is finished and it is time to get paid.  If I were doing the work I would want something in writing before I started that excluded the visual defects in the conditon of the used pavers.