Paver Repair & Re-Sanding in Beverly Hills

A paver driveway depends on what is underneath it more than any walk does. CMHA, the association that writes the paver industry's construction guidance, sets a 6-inch minimum of compacted base for a driveway on well-drained soil, two inches more than under a walk or patio, and calls for more in a cold climate where soil stays wet or is weak. When a base goes in thin or poorly compacted, or stays wet, the drive settles. A low strip in the wheel path is what CMHA calls rutting, and major rutting often points to a base that is not thick or stiff enough for the load.

Joint sand matters more under a car, too. It lets each paver share a load with its neighbors, so no single paver is pushed down on its own. Tires wear sand out of the joints, and open or widened joints make the paver layer less stiff, which sends more stress down into the base and soil.

On rolling ground near the Rouge River branch, and anywhere else water collects, the base can stay wet. Saturated base material settles, and under traffic the wet bedding sand works up through the joints. CMHA recommends drain pipe under vehicle pavers in clay or slow-draining soil. That is drainage and installation work we do not do, so where water is the root of the problem we will tell you before quoting a reset onto a base that stays wet.

Winter is the last test. Lippage, CMHA's word for a paver edge sitting higher than the one beside it, is what a shovel or plow blade catches, and the association advises repairing anything over an eighth of an inch before the snow season. If a plow service clears the drive, its blade shoes should be set so the blade does not scrape across the surface, and plowing on a diagonal to the joints helps.