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My neighbor told me to skip the gravel base under my paver patio and it cost me a full weekend of rework.
He insisted the clay soil in the North Valley was solid enough, but after one heavy rain last month, half the pavers sank and tilted, so I had to pull them all up and add the gravel layer anyway.
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xena_brown506mo ago
Oh man, free advice from a neighbor is always worth exactly what you pay for it. Sounds like he gave you the "solid" tip to skip the one step that actually makes a patio solid. Nothing like a good rain to show you exactly where you cut corners, right? I guess that gravel layer is just there for looks, like all those engineers and landscapers just enjoy moving heavy rocks for fun. Hope your back feels better than your neighbor's advice does.
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jake1896mo ago
Yeah my uncle's a contractor and he says the gravel base is basically the whole point, it's not just filler. He told me once about a job where they had to redo a whole driveway because the previous guy just poured concrete right on dirt. After one winter it looked like a skate park with all the cracks and heaves. Water has to go somewhere, and if it can't drain through gravel it just sits under your slabs and freezes. That neighbor probably saved a weekend of work but cost you years of patio problems.
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masonbell6mo ago
That's brutal, but at least you caught it early. Jake189's uncle is right, that gravel base does all the heavy lifting for drainage and keeping things level. Free advice can be the most expensive kind when it goes wrong. Bet you won't skip that step again.
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