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thin concrete under floating dry brick patio

fcamx's picture

thin concrete under floating dry brick patio (post #190791)

fcamx on Mon, 06/28/2010 - 18:37
in

ive done dry brick over sand patios for years and they alway seem to get a low spot in a few years from setteling and need repair.  simply lift them out and relevel and lay.  i live in central north carolina and the ground is red clay and not subjected to severe cold temps for long periods. 

this time, i was considering a base layer of 1-1/2 " tamped dry gravel mix concrete, and 1/2" sand over that to level.    the thought is it would help stop the setteling i get over time by spreading the foot traffic load over a larger area, created by the hardened concrete.  i know it will crack eventually but the movement would be hidden by the floating brick above.

has anyone ever done that with success? 

Glenn 

 

-A +A

brick patios (post #190791, reply #1 of 2)

by DIYLOL in reply to fcamx [original] on Tue, 07/27/2010 - 10:33

I live in freeze thaw country.  It's common here to use 1\4"  crushed limestone base flooded with water and machine tampered.  The layer is about 5" thick followed by a layer of sand for screeding.  Solid as concrete.

I've used post concrete (the (post #190791, reply #2 of 2)

by DanH in reply to fcamx [original] on Tue, 07/27/2010 - 16:28

I've used post concrete (the pour dry and forget variety) to set some retaining wall blocks, in situations where it was just plain impossible to properly compact the base.  The wall's still there, and doesn't seem the worse for the technique.

But the well-compacted (jumping jack, or at least plate compactor) fine crushed rock is probably a better approach if you can manage it.


We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy -- sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. --Thomas Edison