The Blog Squad

Some people seem to assume performing a pavestone installation is a simple process, that’s why some home owners take on the installations themselves. Here’s a kind of funny and might I add true story. We had a customer call in about a year and a half ago looking for a quote on pavestones. He seemed very eager to expedite the process, so I went out to his house that afternoon. It was in a condominium complex that had front patio’s . As soon as set sight on his patio I was wandering what had happened there. The existing patio was torn out with just large mounds of dirt spread around. When I knocked on the door , a young man with a shiny new leg cast and crutches answered. When I asked what he did to his leg, he simply pointed to the dirt mounds in his patio and said “that happened”. He was performing the demolition on his patio, preparing to do the installation himself, and in the middle of it, he happen to slip and break his leg.
My point is that installing pavestone is not only an art, but it is extremely laborious. A proper pavestone installation (at least in southern California) requires a sub-base preparation of a minimum of 4 inches compacted Class II road base (or more depending on what the existing soil is like) and an inch of washed masonry sand. Residential paving stones are 60mm thick – so you have a total excavation depth of 7.5 inches, minimum. A 1,100 sqft pavestone installation would require excavation of twenty six yards of existing concrete, dirt etc., which would take about four dump trucks. You would import fifteen yards of base and another four yards of sand. Is this still sounding like a weekend project to you?
It takes only modest skill to cut a stone or lay a basic pattern, it takes a skilled professional to create a flight of steps or banding that meanders through a driveway, patio or walkway. This is where hiring a company like Panjia, Inc. is useful. There is a reason every market has an average price range. It’s not because all of the companies got together and said let’s charge this amount. It’s because it costs and certain amount to do the job and then a certain amount to pay for other business expenses (overhead). Depending on the overhead you will see some slight variances in price. When you see a 30 – 40% difference in price something is wrong. You must make sure each company is bidding the same pavestone, and the same installation process with the same base / sand materials. This often explains dramatic differences in price. Like I said, depending on your expectations of how you want your pavestone installation to look like in the end or how long you want your pavers to hold up against traffic will determine if you should hire a professional installation company, or take on the task yourself. One thing is for certain, there are many unqualified contractors (some licensed and some unlicensed) that bid low and then deliver a poor installation.