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My neighbor's DIY patio pavers in Phoenix are already sinking after 8 months, and I feel bad for not saying something sooner
I walked over to my neighbor Ray's yard in Phoenix last weekend and saw his paver patio has dips you can trip on. He laid them last fall with no base, just sand on dirt, and now the corner by his grill sits about 2 inches lower than the rest. I did the same thing at my old house and it cost me $400 to rip it all out and start over with 4 inches of compacted gravel. Tbh you can't skip the base no matter how flat the ground looks in the desert. Has anyone here ever fixed a sunken patio without pulling up every single brick?
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oliver_torres420d ago
My buddy Dave in Tucson tried the same fix on his sunken pavers and the mudjacking quote came back at $1,100 for a 12x14 patio, which is nuts when you can rent a plate compactor for 80 bucks. The thing is, pumping stuff under there only lifts the pavers back up, it does nothing about the reason they sank, which is that Phoenix dirt moves like crazy when the monsoon hits and there's no gravel base to spread the load. So you're basically paying to redo the same mistake and it'll dip again by next summer. Ray's corner by the grill dropping 2 inches in 8 months is fast, that tells you the dirt under there is washing out or settling hard, and a patch job won't stop that. Pulling them up sounds awful but the pavers come up easy since they're not glued, so the real work is digging down and doing the 4 inches of compacted gravel like you did. Only shortcut I'd say is worth it is saving the old sand for the top layer and renting the compactor instead of buying one.
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