How to Keep Sand From Coming Out of Pavers

Preparation is the key to good installation of pavers, whether you use conventional bricks, concrete blocks or some other type. Pavers must be set in a good base, to keep them from shifting and buckling with weather and use. A solid sub-base requires you to excavate the paver area to bare dirt and compact it with a water-filled roller. A bedding base of coarse sand, leveled and compacted with a roller, ensures the pavers will hold steady.

Excavator
Water-filled roller
Coarse sand
Pavers (type varies)
Polymeric sand (optional)
Broom (optional)
Garden hose (optional)

Instructions

- 1
  Flush-mount pavers, so there are no big joints to fill. Slide pavers down from the top, rather than in from the side, which could allow grains of sand to get in the joints and separate them slightly. Put down a first row of pavers. Add a second row by putting the bottom edge of the new paver flush with the top edge of the previous paver. Press straight down, so the sides of the pavers are tight, to set the new paver into the sand bed.
- 2
  Use interlocking pavers. Some newer styles of brick and many varieties of concrete pavers are made with interlocking sides, so one paver slides firmly into the joint of the abutting paver. Set these by matching the joints, much like tongue and groove flooring, and pressing the new block straight down, so the sides of the joint are perfectly flush.
- 3
  Fill the joints with polymeric sand instead of regular sand by sweeping it into place. Spray the sane and pavers with a garden hose set to mist. Polymeric sand has special additives that solidify with water, sealing the sand in the joints. Add a bit of cement to fine mason's sand if polymeric sand is not an option; a very small amount of straight cement, with no sand or other material, will seal the sand in the joints.

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