Landscaping in Birmingham, Michigan

  An outdoor grill for an outdoor living space.

  A natural fire pit with wall seating. The wood cover converts the fire pit into an outdoor table.

A backyard porch built from Brussels Blocks.

        An outdoor patio made out of Brussels Block.

Landscaping in Highland, Michigan

A backyard patio built with Belgarde ‘Arbel’ concrete pavers and trimmed in brick pavers.

A custom built wood pergola for the backyard patio.

Brick Patio in Ypsilanti

Here are photos of a recently completed brick paver job in Ypsilanti.

 

 

Cleaning Bricks

Cleaning, sealing, and sanding of existing brick paver sidewalks and patios should be performed every 2 – 3 years.

The sealing of bricks should not be done more often than this.  Excessive sealing could result in a build up of sealer and even produce a hazy or cloudy appearance to the pavers.

If this does occur we should be able to remedy the problem by diluting the sealer with a stripper or a thinner. This is something that the average homeowner should not try on their own.

While cleaning brick pavers use a power washer and “blast” the sand out of the joints. Now don’t go crazy with this. If you blast too much out, you could get down to the bedding sand, and this could cause the pavers to settle and become uneven — creating a costly repair.

Brick pavers don’t usually need chemical cleaning. Washing with a power washer works well, but if the pavers have stain from hard water or oil from vehicles, there are some good products that can usually remove the stains but not always or completely.

If your pavers are not sealed and the contactor used polymeric sand to fill the joints the pavers may not need sanding for 4 – 5 years. If you don’t have polymeric sand in the joints then your pavers will need sanding every year, and I suggest you spend the extra few dollars and upgrade to polymeric sand. As a contractor I only use polymeric sand.

 

Have A Proper Base for Brick Pavers

When installing brick pavers, make sure the installer uses a compacted gravel base.  I recently looked at a brick job that is only three years old, but has a lot of settling. Her brick pavers are wavy, sinking and some are loose.The homeowner informed me that the contractor did not use a compacted gravel base.  The loose bricks can also be a result of improper sanding. Now, this homeowner is completely against using brick pavers to complete the rest of her project.

As a homeowner, protect yourself by knowing the industry standards. The most commonly accepted standard is a minimum of 5 to 6″ of compacted gravel (21AA or its equivalent) for sidewalks and porches. Although porch base depth is determined by the height of the porch. When bricks will sustain vehicular traffic a minimum of 8″ is required.

Slag +/or sand should be used for leveling only, approx. 1 to 2″.

Building a proper base for a brick porch

Building the base for a porch

 

The finished project: A beautiful brick porch