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Okay, so we need to put a paved surface along one side of the house and wrapping around the corner along about 1/3 of the rear wall. Right now it's just dirt after having the rotting wood patio/deck pulled out.
Looking at 6x9 Cambridge Pavers as the least budget-injurious choice (I'm being told that the cost difference between red brick and the pavers is negligible.) The important points are that whatever's installed will be set on concrete and will have polymeric sand in the joints.
Here's the issue: Strictly from a color perspective I'd like a medium to dark brown paver. We had a light colored Cambridge driveway (Onyx/Natural) in the last house and I hated it because it showed everything. I figure that the closer to dirt the color, the better it will look, lol. The new house siding will be brown also, and for the same reason.
The problem with the browns or any dark color is that the efflorescence (white stuff) that develops will show up bigtime and make it look awful. The use of the concrete base makes it almost a certainty that efforescence will develop but it's a cr@psh00t as to whether it will eventually go away or not. The polymeric sand can also end up causing a haze and it, from what I'm reading, is even harder to remove. So a dark paver can end up looking much lighter because of that too. So it seems more logical to use a lighter color paver, except that....
The area along the side of the house, which will be the largest paved area, is also where my neighbor's humongous oak tree drops a ton of leaves and 'strings' and acorns every year. And oak leaves contain a ton of tannin which means they will stain a lighter color paver bigtime. We had maple leaves stain the previous light paver driveway, but at least they faded over the course of a few seasons. Oak leaf stains are worse. All it takes it one rainfall after a "leaf dump" and it's a mess. So THAT problem argues for a dark paver.
Classic rock-and-a-hard-place choice. Landscape and masonry guys shrug and say, essentially, "pick your poison." The dark colors will look crappy from efflorescence and the light colors will be stained by the oak tree debris. (New pavers should not be sealed (if using, and I would rather not) for at least a year so that the moisture can migrate out, and by that time the oak leaves will have stained it.)
So: Anyone here have dark (meaning medium to dark brown, or even close to black) pavers installed and if so, how bad was the efflorescence and/or polymeric haze problem? Was your work set in "base" or over concrete?
Okay, so we need to put a paved surface along one side of the house and wrapping around the corner along about 1/3 of the rear wall. Right now it's just dirt after having the rotting wood patio/deck pulled out.
Looking at 6x9 Cambridge Pavers as the least budget-injurious choice (I'm being told that the cost difference between red brick and the pavers is negligible.) The important points are that whatever's installed will be set on concrete and will have polymeric sand in the joints.
Here's the issue: Strictly from a color perspective I'd like a medium to dark brown paver. We had a light colored Cambridge driveway (Onyx/Natural) in the last house and I hated it because it showed everything. I figure that the closer to dirt the color, the better it will look, lol. The new house siding will be brown also, and for the same reason.
The problem with the browns or any dark color is that the efflorescence (white stuff) that develops will show up bigtime and make it look awful. The use of the concrete base makes it almost a certainty that efforescence will develop but it's a cr@psh00t as to whether it will eventually go away or not. The polymeric sand can also end up causing a haze and it, from what I'm reading, is even harder to remove. So a dark paver can end up looking much lighter because of that too. So it seems more logical to use a lighter color paver, except that....
The area along the side of the house, which will be the largest paved area, is also where my neighbor's humongous oak tree drops a ton of leaves and 'strings' and acorns every year. And oak leaves contain a ton of tannin which means they will stain a lighter color paver bigtime. We had maple leaves stain the previous light paver driveway, but at least they faded over the course of a few seasons. Oak leaf stains are worse. All it takes it one rainfall after a "leaf dump" and it's a mess. So THAT problem argues for a dark paver.
Classic rock-and-a-hard-place choice. Landscape and masonry guys shrug and say, essentially, "pick your poison." The dark colors will look crappy from efflorescence and the light colors will be stained by the oak tree debris. (New pavers should not be sealed (if using, and I would rather not) for at least a year so that the moisture can migrate out, and by that time the oak leaves will have stained it.)
So: Anyone here have dark (meaning medium to dark brown, or even close to black) pavers installed and if so, how bad was the efflorescence and/or polymeric haze problem? Was your work set in "base" or over concrete?
I had grey Cambridge pavers in the front of my house and the effourescence was greatly neutralized by sealing it immediately after install...
Just recently had a new black top driveway with Cambridge 6x9 paver borders and front stoop in pavers. I went with a chestnut for the border and chestnut/salmon for the stoop and driveway apron. (bullnose pavers on stoop are chestnut too). All the chestnut pavers have efflorescence. It will go away in time and not be noticeable. You can use a solution on it to remove some of it, but doing nothing and allow nature to take it's course is the recommended.
14 years ago had chestnut/salmon done around my pool. Efflorescence was there initially, but went away.
ByeBye and NYTom, did either of you have your pavers set on cement rather than sand? Because I hear that does increase the efflorescence because of the additional lime working its way up from underneath.
Also: regular sand, or polymeric, for the joints?
Re: Sealing, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that if you seal the pavers immediately after install, you are actually sealing the chemical reaction in and so although the efflorescence may not be as noticeable when it happens, it will stick around a lot longer than if the pavers were unsealed. So the choice sems to be either Sealed = less efflorescence but takes longer to disappear, or Unsealed = more efflorescence but disappears faster.
You don't need concrete. Everyone assumes it's "better" for a base. It's not.
Go with redbrick. Its timeless.
In 10 years all those other 6x9's will be like the octagonal nicolocks.
It will be the wood paneling of driveways and walkways.
The front walkway, back patio, and a side walkway already are red brick and actually that's what we originally asked for in estimates ... but every single one of the masons and landscape contractors pushed back against the idea. None of the existing brick installs have the polymeric sand, which means it's a constant battle against the weeds. The back patio and side walkway were done by "three owners back" and appear to be on concrete. The front walk was done by the prior owner 9 years ago, just set in sand with a cement edge, and was already sinking in four areas as of two years ago.
The Cambridge driveway in our last house was set on a sand etc base and we had tire 'dips' in front of both garage doors in about 5 years. Our neighbor had the same driveway installed the year after we did ours but used a different contractor who used the concrete base; they never had any 'dips' even though their vehicles were heavier than ours and during the winters they even had a 26' boat on a trailer in part of their driveway.
I may well revise my specs on the new work to say red brick instead. Talked to my son about it last night and he made the good point that using that would eliminate any buyers remorse about picking the "wrong color", lol. Plus maybe it'll bring the sticker-shock price down a bit.
You can poly sand everything. It's not 100% weedproof but it helps big time.
The old stuff you can powerwash/blow/sweep the old stuff out of the cracks and then add the poly.
You don't have to remove every last grit. Just clear out a few inches or so.
Red brick is totally the way to go.
A driveway is a different animal due to the excessive weight and wear.
It's a job for the big boys no doubt, proper base prep and there should be no or minimal settling issues.
And, I've seen plenty of driveways done with concrete base that still ended up with divots so...
Also, consistency is a plus. Having pavers here, bricks there, concrete over there, etc, just looks disheveled and will detract from resale if the time comes to sell. And just looks poopy.
No different than inside a home when every room has a different floor covering. Its a turn off.
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