Is the concrete pad outside your back door causing you extreme boredom? Do your eyes hurt when looking at that bland, white slab plagueing your back yard? Get ready to dress it up with this week’s Summer of DIY tips and tricks! If you follow Semco’s blog, you probably know that we’re always encouraging people to try out natural stone and flagstone. These natural stones are some of the best looking, durable and atmosphere creating pavers you can use – the drawback is that they’re pretty hard to install, especially if you’re an amateur! Today’s tip is a project any home owner can undertake without the need for pros.
Using Pavers to Cover Up that Boring Concrete Pad
Time it Will Take: One Saturday
Check out the video from our sister company, Semco Outdoor:
How it’s Done: Installing square pavers over your existing slab patio is pretty straightforward. You’ll need some supplies that you can pick up at your local hardware store, and you may need greater or fewer depending on your patio.
Start by measuring your patio. Make sure to get the square footage and make sure that the patio is level before you even go purchase supplies. If it’s not level, pick up some concrete leveling compound and take care of this problem before you lay any pavers! Likewise, if you’ve got cracks in your concrete, make sure to get some weed defense fabric!
Spread a thin layer of paver base all over the concrete, leaving about 8 inches along each edge, then add leveling sand to make the base as smooth as possible. Begin laying your pavers to top of the base from one corner outward. As you go, double check that you’re keeping each paver as level as possible.
After the pavers are laid, prepare some mortar and spread around the outside 8 inches that aren’t covered already with pavers. Break the pavers into the appropriate sized pieces and place around the edges on top of the mortar.
Finally spread polymeric sand all over the pavers using a push broom or very carefully with a regular broom to fill in all the cracks and sweep away all the excess. Wet it down thoroughly and allow it all to set before walking on it.
That’s it – your patio is now a point of pride! Using Semco Stone pavers, from Hessit or Unilock, are designed just for this kind of simple installation.
Dress Up That Ugly Concrete Pad with Pavers
