How to Build a Paved Patio

Queensland offers beautiful landscapes and spaces for entertaining and relaxing in the great outdoors. Patios provide the perfect place for enjoying the outdoors without leaving the comforts of your own home. Every year, thousands of property owners in the area work with companies like DeKing decking to get the perfect patio for their property. Others enjoy the challenge of building a patio themselves.

The process of building a patio depends on the materials and designs you want to use. Pavers may be the most popular material for DIY patio building, but some prefer other materials such as brick, wood or stone. For the purposes of this article, we will discuss how to build a patio with pavers. Covering your patio also depends on a variety of different variables and can be considered a separate process from your patio-building project.

Preparation for Building a Patio

Before laying out any patio, you should start by measuring the lengths and widths for the intended space. Don’t start digging until you get the local utility company to mark all underground water, electrical and gas lines. Your utility company should provide this service free of charge or at a small cost.

If you are digging your patio out by hand, start by driving stakes into the ground at each corner. This will give you a general layout. You can then use landscaper’s paint to mark the area on the ground. Before digging, you should also determine how far you want your finished patio to sit off the ground. It needs to be at least slightly above the ground so that rainwater can drain properly. Consider the thickness of your paving stones and allow another 6” for your gravel foundation. The key to building a long-lasting patio is in the foundation.

Laying the Foundation

Now that all your preparation has been completed, you can begin digging out the patio area. Once you’ve gotten close to the desired depth, tamp the surface of the dirt down firmly and level the ground. Commercial-grade landscape fabric should then be spread across the area leaving an extra few inches on each side (you can trim it off after finishing). Secure the fabric with eight-inch landscape spikes.

Apply four inches of crushed gravel or a comparable material on top of the landscape fabric and level it off as much as possible. After the gravel is fairly level, you will need to lay a bed of sand across the area. For small patios, hand tamping may be sufficient; however, larger patio projects will require the use of a power tamper.

After the sand bed has been tampered, add another layer of sand about two inches thick. You will need to screed this layer of sand to make sure that it is uniform and level. Once the screeding is completed, you need to frame the patio area with landscape edging. Aluminium edging material is a better choice than plastic due to its lightweight, durable and flexible qualities. Lay the edging along the perimeter of the area and use metal shears to cut it to length. Use work gloves as the corners are usually sharp. Drive eight-inch nails through the pre-drilled holes with a sledgehammer to secure the edging.

How to Finish Your Patio

Before laying your pavers in place, use a chalk line to ensure that the rows stay straight. If you want to achieve a framed feel with your patio, lay the outer rows perpendicular to one another. Once the first few pavers are in place, the rest should go much faster. After laying the pavers, use a rubber mallet to tap them in firmly.

If you need to split any pavers to fit corners or small holes, just determine where the paver needs to be broken and position your chisel at that point. Hit the top of the chisel with a hammer to split the paver. If you need to split a lot of pavers, consider renting a wet saw to speed up the project.

Although building a patio with pavers seems fairly simple, building one that lasts for many years takes a lot of hard work. If you have the time and the energy to handle the job, just follow these steps and try to have fun!

Deking are highly experienced in building patios and if you should like to have a patio professionally built by us, we would welcome you to contact us in this regard.  Click on the links to find out more information on our capabilities in building patios.

DeKing Decks service Brisbane, Redlands, Bayside, Logan, Ipswich, Moreton Bay, Gold Coast, Lockyer Valley and Scenic Rim

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