Beginner’s guide to pavers’ installation

Carol Asio

We have all visited a home or office where they tried to think out of the box with the compound. The biggest number of people with homes prefer using concreate pavers as an alternative to the green grass.

Concrete pavers can withstand heavy foot traffic and needs little maintenance.
But what does one need to know before installing concrete pavers?
Different professionals advise that one should know the type of pavers they need before anything.
They always come in different types and sizes, for instance, some are meant to handle heavier loads than the others; ideally, those used in a home are supposed to be different from those that end up in public spaces. Yet, besides the types, they also differ in designs and color.

Speaking types though, they are specified in classes such as Double T pavers which have 35 pieces in a square meter. Rectangular pavers have 50 pieces in a square meter and double moon, which are the commonest on the market have 43 pieces in a square meter.
Normally while embarking on installing concrete pavers, the engineer takes measurements of the compound and gets the exact number of square meters of pavers that will be needed.

Cost
A square meter costs Shs28000 0r Shs27000 for domestic use pavers, and that’s just the small size. At Shs33000, you can purchase at least 80mm or heavy duty concrete pavers. These are mostly used in public spaces such as petrol stations.
Installing the pavers may cost one at least Shs5000 or more, per square metre, it may depend on the person one chooses to work with.

Options
On the other hand, some clients prefer using the walk way slabs since it covers a bigger space and leaves you with an option of planting grass in between the slabs to make it look beautiful.

The size of the slabs is normally 40cm×40cm for example and each slab costs about Shs5000 to Shs7000. Even with this option, the engineer takes measurements to know the right number of slabs needed to fit in a given square meter.
Besides concrete pavers though, there are many using natural stone pavers; these are very costly though not a good idea for public spaces.
Others use brick pavers, made from natural clay, which are credited for not staining easily and of course, needing less cleaning than the concrete ones.

People need to be aware of the dealer they are buying their pavers from, knowing the process may help the decision making because, it has been proven that machine made pavers and slabs are much better and long-lasting than hand- made.
Thus it is important to know if you’re buying handmade pavers or machine baked.

Common mistakes
Most think they can guess the number of square meters to avoid an extra cost of having a professional doing it. The dangers in this is that they may end up buying less or more than they need.

There is also a belief that pavers can be fixed by anyone, as a result, people hire unprofessional people for the job and as a result, they don’t get the desired results.

Then others fail to know the right number of pieces in a specific type of pavers they want to purchase.
But above it all, people need to get the right information before embarking on the procedure.