Home Renovations Interlock Paving - It Was Good Enough For The Roma | Page 11

Once the foundations and the bedding sand have been prepared the next step is to install the edge
restraints. These are physical restraints that will prevent the spread or lateral movement of the
pavers. The edges should therefore be strong enough to resist such forces so suitable edging
material are concrete or ideally the side of a house though there are also commercial heavy-duty
vinyl restraints available. Once all the perimeter edges have been installed it is finally time to lay
out the pavers in the pattern you have selected. The most common is the herringbone pattern but
there are literally thousands in online catalogues to choose from.
Once all the pavers have been laid then they will need to be covered in sand in order to fill the
gaps between them and create the interlocking that holds them together. Then they will need to
be compressed to bed them firmly and securely into the sand bed in order to level them. This is
done using a vibrating plate compactor for projects covering large areas as a way to evenly
spread the force and to avoid damaging individual pavers. For small areas of paving a rubber
mallet can be used to compress and even up the pavers to get everything level. The final step is
to once more spread fine masonry sand over the pavers and work them once again with the
compactor or the mallet to work the sand into the gaps. This is a crucial step as it is very
important that all the gaps are filled with sand as that is what performs the interlocking function
and keeps everything stable and strong.