Great introduction to all the needed prep steps. Great idea of using the window to show the height/lifts and stamping of the roadbase and sand.

Your customers are definitely getting their money's worth! Good to see someone take real pride in their work 👍

Man this is some serious prep! Quite impressive and your clients must truly appreciate your work!!

i just did base prep for first time ever. And i went and bought a tamper like youre using. I was trying to hit the ground as hard as i could, but watching you do small quick repetitive wacks makes me realise it doesnt have to be too hard! I like how you used the plexi glass to show the soil compacting as you tamped it :)

I really appreciate the detailed info, the thorough explanations, & the cross-section view. It reminded me of a college class I once took. Very cool. Thanks for your work on the quality video. Respect.

Excellent! Great to see someone who knows what he is doing and can explain how to do it wright,

I would certainly hire this guy. Seems very professional and willing to go the extra mile to get it done right.

Great video on importance of correct prep for a better long lasting job.

Absolutely brilliant using the glass to visually show compaction. Now when a customer has questions about the base prep, I can refer them to this quick informative video. Thanks mate

This guy is where it’s at! Thank you

Thank you for explaining when to use the cloth. Some videos just did it, some didn't, no one explained when to use it and when it was unecessary.

A lot of info presented in a concise way. Well done.

Hard work but certainly worth it! Thank you for this video.

When you screed with a level you’ll get a much flatter surface if you use more of a rowing motion over just a straight drag backwards. One side of the level stays somewhat stationary while you drag back with the other hand, after that pull bring your level back to where it started and repeat with the opposite side staying stationary.

All in the prep…well done!

Love the enthusiasm

Wow - incredible

Good video, love your plexi glass angle showing the compaction. This is still the method here on LI. We can’t do open base if we wanted to because no one sells 1/4” chip.

I like your video a lot. That side video of the layers and compaction makes things very clear. Thank you very much.

Have been researching Patio Paver Install for a few days. This is one of the few really good videos that shows detail. I knew pavers on only sand would be a disaster in a short time. Yet I was unsure how tight the 3/4- crushed road base would compact. Thanks for the video. Mama (wife) will be happy with her 11 x 21 patio.

This satisfies my ocd ... props from a landscaper over in the UK🤙

You have to go at least 8 inch deep for the base and 2 or 3 more depending on where you want the stones to sit usually go above grade a little. I do fabric, 5 inch gravel road base compact at 2.5 inch , then 3inches of limestone screening with the last inch packing in some concrete sand then you’re ready for brick. Driveways are 14-18 inch base

This video was so much help...Thank you.

Definitely the best pad prep video, by far, that I've been able to find in two weeks of looking. The video is enough and not too much, and not a bunch of self gratifying content. I really would like to thank you for your whole package on this video. There are a few OK ones out there, But yours leaves nothing lacking. I excavated two pads here in Hawaii on muck at one site and pretty much solid rock on another. We filled with stone and I compressed the substrate with a 5,000lb tractor. Most stuff on KZfaq is working on soil, and it is too different to tie in on most parts. But yours fits in any circumstance. This is my first time from the ground up on a house, though I've done everything else on buildings for years. And I've been pretty frustrated searching the videos, until now.

Great cutaway view. Good presentation.

Perfect thanks

Very nice prep. Thanks for the video.

Excellent video, I need every one of my crew members to watch this, some of them maybe twice.

From Ontario Toronto. Thank you for Making a simple detailed video ❤️👍👍

Excellent video and detail. Very well explained and great close up shots.

I like using that level trick under the string🌲great move ... that is the only way to do it that way I can know exactly that I’m flat and level or whatever angle/ height , I need to be at 🌎

Excellent. Thats how I do it.

Really like the string line level technique

Best video I’ve seen! Thank you it will help me tremendously with my project

Thanks man. Straight to the point and no drama!

Excellent video

Great job!!

Thank you for this, never knew of such a thing called a Tamper until now, great for small jobs around the house, $56.00 at my local hardware store🌟🌟🌟 Western Australia 🥰

Great video .

This type of material for a base is on the way out, it just simply traps too much moisture. Now 3/4 clean crushed aggregate, no binder material, is used and then topped with 1/4” or 3/8” clean crushed stone. This allows the water to pass through the stone.

Ok, you come to Germany, stay with us and install 100 sq meter paver stones and put in a wall foundation - deal? Oh, the beer /wine is good....

So kick ass and informative. Thank you.

Nice job, thank

The cost stung for about a year, but hiring professionals to install a retaining wall and adjacent paver area has given us so much joy. It draws you to it and gives you a retreat with company or in solitude. Both are the marrow of life.

Great video. As with almost everything, you can pretty much predict the quality of the final product by the quality and completeness of the preparation.

Damn, no bullshit, quick video with everything in it, thanks!

i was going to hate but you are a pro my friend good work.

Good video thank you

Cool video!

I really like your thinking as far as taking a little extra time with your prep work. I've always had the mindset that any extra time spent prepping you will get back during construction. My question to you is how would you recommend building a great base like this when your using natural stones that have variable thicknesses? The stones could be any where from 2" think to, 6.5" thick, and likely only somewhat flat on one side.

Level to line screed...so frkn simple. Man I feel stupid...awesome.

Thanks

I needed this episode. New home in dessert. You made it easy to understand. New sub here.

First time DIYer here! Your videos are amazing and so straight forward, thank you for sharing! I have a few questions for you. Call me crazy but I am building a 14 x 14 ft large stone paver patio over an old pine tree landscape bed. It is located between my shed and house.The area is also sloped a good 8-10 inches towards the back of my shed. I cleaned out the landscape bed, pulled out roots, and used a stump grinder to get rid of the entire stump. Now I have a 3 foot hole in the middle of my patio area, ugh! I want to build a small retaining wall at the lowest point as well. What is my next steps? How do I go about setting my base floor on a slope with also building a wall? Also, do I backfill the hole with left over dirt/clay material or use gravel? Any advice would be appreciated, thank you for taking the time.

Thank you!!!

Good vid thanks I subbed.

Great instruction right there

I agree, I like my MOT type 1 perfect grade so when I lay my slabs most of the hard work getting a slope has been done.

Hey Kevin, perhaps I missed it in your video but when would you set your slope (or grade)? For example, while compacting the sub-grade or when your setting the roadbase. TIA

Hi! Should I place some plastic edging around the perimeter of where I’m going to prepare the base? Or should I do that afterwards? First time trying to do this in my townhouse backyard. Thanks, great video!

Thanks for the training/education. Does frost or what weather conditions will change the surface height after your sub grade? What is recommended for slope for drainage?

Do you have a video demonstrating how to set your level lines? For me the most challenging part is setting your level lines up.

In the US these are a standard way a doing things, I was actually ICP certified so I know what the standard are and have projects done according to their guidelines. I am also Dutch living in Oregon since 1984, the Dutch have no gravel , they use sand for most of their sidewalks and urban roads. I used 6 inch of sand on top of my liner and my patio looks great 10 years on. The strenght of sand is it vertical strength, think of the beach, you can drive on compacted side of the beach sand, the weakness is action on its horizontal side of it, like when you turn you steering wheel.You need good drainage, and good side restrains, and it's easy fixing, and reuse the sand and pavers.

Thanks for sharing your expertise mate from NZ Btw is there a part 2..for the blockwork

What do you do if you have previous sprinkler pipes where you're building a retaining wall? Do you leave it there and work around it?

Should use a road bass fabric to keep the gravel from migrating into the sub soil. And you should lay you wall and step stones in a angular clear stone.

Question: I’m adding a 4X8 area with either brick trim/concrete or just pavers to a patio area. Should I do the three lifts? Thank you for the string line-level idea.

Really nice in-depth video with great information. I have a question, My house and detached garage are about 5 ft apart from each other. I had to rip up the concrete walkway that was installed. It did not have wire mesh it was not secured to either foundation via rebar so it collapsed. What is the best method for installing a walkway in between a port foundation and a block foundation. My goal is to put pavers on top. I'm not sure if I should pour a slab in between the two foundations and secure them with rebar to the garage foundation and the house foundation. I also live in an area where I'm kind of at the bottom of a gully so we get a lot of runoff and moisture. I figured a base of concrete would be best but I'm not sure.

Hmmm. I've always used a graded base of 3/4 trap with a paver bedding of 3/8 since here in my Massachusetts gets lot of ice.

I was looking for a strategy to compact sub-base soil (when you add the thin first layer)! Thank-you but I have a question. Does compacting any base material work on on wet soil? I would think the moisture would prevent full compaction.

In Ohio where I live I prefer using a 1/2" bedding stone as opposed to bedding sand. And I do not compact the sub soil. I lay down a 2 ish inch layer of 3/4 stone and compact that over the sub base. Compacting a clay sub soil can lead to water not permeating as well. Love the video!

Superb ground work, I definitely think the extra steps pay huge dividends later. Thank you for taking the time to film this 🙏

Hi. Thank you for your video. Great info. I'm checking into creating a patio with pavers in approximately a 9' x 10' rectangle area that is encircled by my house walls and side walk up to my front door. I will only be able to use a tamper. Will this plan mess the stability of my home since I'll need to dig down about 7-8' along the foundation? Thanks.

This is basically some of the process I've used to put in pavers. I dealt with some areas where it was just loose fill over trash on one end with heavy blocks of rubble pushed in. Lots of voids and old lumber included. I had to dig down to remove all the trash in some places three feet down. Then I used salvaged gravel to partially refill the area and compacted that with a hand tamper. When that was done I used screened soil with five parts soil to one part Riverside Portland to make a thick mud I dropped in and vibrated down by hand to fill the hole. The entire area had to be mechanically compacted and then I was ready for decomposed granite which I layered in watered and hand tamped. I got it up to half an inch of grade and then screeded in my sand. Placed pavers 1/8th inch above curbing and then vibrated mechanically to place top sand. Swept it all down and washed. Homeowner refused to pay for sealer so I left it as is. A year later they have issues with ants and weeds. I cleaned it all up, killed all weeds and again homeowner refused to invest in sealer. Stupid people get what they want.

Great video,good job! Wish you were in Tennessee I would hire you!

Hey Kev, great videos! After screeding the road base, do you plate compact before adding 1" of install material?

Hey Kevin! Your videos are very informative! I had a question for you, if you don't mind. We're going to be doing a DIY patio at home this weekend which is going to be surrounding by grass on all 4 sides (grass that already exists). So my question is regarding the posts and string line we'll be creating so that we know the dimensions of the patio itself. What is the proper practice, however, if we will also need to install paver edging (the plastic kind) - do we need to excavate further out from our actual patio size? My concern in doing that is that we will end up digging up our posts and lose our level string lines - as well as the fact that we wouldn't need to dig as deep for the edging. So curious on the best practice in a situation like this. Thanks so much!

Back again, @4:06 is the fabric used woven or non-woven? I've learned that woven seems to have superior soil strength results while non-woven has better drainage characteristics .

Hi, May I ask you I have prepared my base with road base and compacted it well. Does it have to be 100 % level. It has few high and low spots at few places that I am not able to rectify to 100 %. Would adding pavers sand on next step not fix these few spots. Please share. Thank You !

This is pretty awesome me and my cousin do turf he can grade it pretty good by eye and a rake but I always thought it would be smart to do it in layers I will definitely incorporate this when I start doing it for myself is there any thing you recommend to really learn how to grade and compact everything and any tips for drainage? Any way to contact you?

Thanks for the informative video! Noticing there are some pvc pipes close to the home at 3:56 that look like drainage. How did you tackle paving around that? Any concerns with the pipes being underneath pavers? Asking because we have a similar scenario. 🙏

Lol @ the enthusiastic narration

Great instruction and video. Do you really need that much road base, or any road base at all if you have to jackhammer or use a ripper attachment on a decent-sized excavator to accomplish any ground removal? My driveway excavation just produces DG. I have had a few quotes for pavers and some companies want to go deeper to get in add and road base, compact, and then sand. Other companies have said they only need to use sand as a little base to level low spots as the compaction of the material in my driveway is better than what could be achieved by ripping it out and adding road base, recompacting. There isn't any organic material to decompose. I live in Southern, CA so there isn't a lot of rain and we live at the top of the hill and don't receive any runoff when it does. Your thoughts or advice?

Is it weird that I found the tamping sound very satisfying

I been doing alot of research on making a paver patio for my walkout basement, currently I have a deck and it's rotted because no sun ever hits this area. If I replace the deck wood it will just rot again in a few years it rotted in just 10 years treated wood and maintained the stain. Anyway, what base would be best for this type of condition? If I do sand it will stay moist and become a breeding ground for skeeters. I was thinking crushed stone, but not sure if it would be as easy to prep.

This is excellent. That’s a lot of crushed rocks. I have to use sand

Q: Is the 4-6" tamped base the same if your burying french drains etc. or do you have to generally start your tamped stone; from that base (of the drains)?

Great video, can you tell me how do I know when the soil , gravel and sand is compacted correctly. In your video you say too go over it 3 x's from different directions .How much do I overlap as I'm compacting.

That's 👍👍👍

This was excellent. Really helpful to understand the layers and approach. I'm going to do a DIY paving stone parking pad for my 3,000 Lb travel trailer. Any recommendation you have for what materials to use for the base layers for a pad in which the trailer will be parked at length in the same spot? I am in California, so little rain. More concerned about stability under long duration tire weight. Thank you!

I live in Houston, Texas and the sub-grad is this muddy clay. I've dug seven feet down in my backyard and it's still mud/clay. I'm at loss for what to do next. It makes since why all the roads and sidewalks are popping and shifting in this city. Especially in the older neighborhoods. I'm thinking of digging down two feet and filling in my whole backyard with base rock? Idk, I don't think people were ment to live on a swamp

iam doing a column...how do secure the 1row of block paver

Thanks for the very informative video. What adjustments should i consider making in Nova Scotia? I am concerned about frost heaving as our ground is quite wet although my property has good drainage. Soil is heavy clay type for the most part. Wet like the west coast but add a long cold winter to the mix with temps dipping down below minus 20. Thanks!

good shit homie

Great video. What road base are you using? Crusher Run or rock screens or something else?

What happens with drainage and puddling do you make this flat or build it on a slight slope towards the drainage ?

Dude i'm trying to get my gravel base level and flat and it has been kinda kicking my a$$. I got 3/4 base cause that's all our quarry and landscapers have up here apparently. But I went got a p.o.s. harbor freight level to try your method. I'm ready to just start building already. Saving money is nice, but I been wasting too much time. And the dust in my material seems to have settled and mostly just rocks on my top layer now. Anyways thanks for the info video

Help please. Mom and I are too frail to do this type of thing anymore so we hired a handyman who also does landscaping to put a pea gravel area around the deck. I had him put dig out the area to about 6", put heavy duty landscape fabric down then 4" of 2b stone. But he didn't tamp the 2b before adding the pea gravel in the first section! Now it shifts a lot under foot and some 2b churns up. Mom says it's fine and it will compact by walking on it. I strongly disagree. I think I should rent a compactor for when he returns this week to finish. Will this help the stability? Will 2b compact? (Some internet sites say yes, some say no.) Your advice please?

Anyone in northern Ontario tell me if I should change over from crusher dust to high performance bedding for the final bedding layer? And I’ve been taught to not compact the bedding layer after lifting my pipes I just fill where the pipes were then lay the stone and compact only after it’s laid but my buisness partner was taught to compact it before laying the stone

Looking for perfection here, can I use stakes at a 6' interval within the build area to help get a better level for the roadbase? If I do, should I just sprinkle in material to the holes when I pull the stakes and then compact that area?