Quote:
Originally Posted by Vernon Hud
I would guess that 99.9999 percent of the driveways in The Villages are thin pavers laid over the original concrete driveway. If you would want to check that out, the only pavers that are cemented down are usually a 8 inch ribbon on the very outer edge of the driveway or sidewalk. Then the pavers are laid in with very thin joints with absolutely no sand beneath. When I did mine, I used a shop vac to make sure nothing was on the concrete, very essential. Once all the pavers are laid, the joints are filled with a fine sand that has a mortar mixture in it. This is then wet down with a fine spray of water, and it will eventually get hard. So if you would like to check to see if you have thin pavers, you can do so by taking maybe a broken one out. These thin pavers are about 5/8 of an inch thick. I put in my own driveway with thin pavers about 10 years ago, and have only had to replace a few. Still looks very nice, but have to reseal every 3-4 yrs.
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I think you mean 99.9999% of the "paver laid driveways" are "thin" pavers. Certainly not that high a percentage of all of the driveways in TV are thin pavers.
Your comment that the pavers are laid directly on the concrete without a layer of sand between concrete and paver is interesting. I believe you 100% since you actually did yours yourself. By the time we bought our place the pavers were in bad enough shape that it looked to me upon inspection of a few broken pavers that I removed, that a very thin amount of sand was used under the paver. However that sand may have just seeped under the broken paver, or may have been dirt and grime from over the years.
I can tell you that the previous owner told me that the company that installed the pavers was long gone.
The person who gave me one estimate for rehabilitating the thin paver set up warned me that since I was on a corner, heavy trucks would tend to use my driveway to turn around, and he suggested that if I were to keep the thin paver system, I have about 10 feet of concrete removed so he could set the thick pavers down for that first 10 feet. Although there were broken pavers here and there throughout the length of the driveway, the largest percentage of broken pavers was close to the curb, so his analysis made sense, although I've never seen a big truck use my driveway to turn around. But his analysis and suggestion made it easier for me to abandon the thin pavers and go another route.
I could be wrong, but I would be surprised if there are still any companies around that install thin pavers over concrete, other than a few folks who will attempt to repair old failing efforts. I suspect the number of problems, and the availability of other driveway treatments have lead to the disappearance of this technique .