Frost damage to indian paving - Problems with indian

[msh paving]

i think this thermal stuff is getting a bit carried away,after all we are working men not geologist,

there are lots of scientific ideas flowing around, there must be a simple reason why they are lifting MSH

[ambient]

just done two before christmas on marshalls grit 5 to 1 wet mix neither of them has lifted one was on side of a lake open to weather
i think its the recycled sand if you buy that round here its like soil ash mix for turfing definately would not use for paving is good for turfing though ???

[worldofpaving]

Sorry but science does play a role in what we do and the properties of materials are important and do play an role in how they perform.

Real sand grains do not absorb water - sand just "bulks", the water molecules just cling on to the surface of the sand so 5% is usually the maximum water allowance by wieight when mixing concrete.

A manufactured "recycled" sand made of god knows what is likely to contain porous materials and it is this water that freezes and expands taking the surrounding material with it - it's an unstoppable reaction.

Because there is no material spec for the recycled product there is nothing to measure batch to batch so we have no way of accurately predicting how much water is in the material and therefore by how much it will expand.

Against so potentially creating a big problem for an installer - do 1 this week it's fine, do 1 next week, it fails - customer "you must have done something wrong this week"................

So, science has come up with a simple explanation - the "sand" is crap!

WOP

[topgrafter2007]

i suppose science does play a role in evrything we do in construction, most of us guys doing the manual side of things tend not to think to deep :p i had a problem that i think ive got to the bottom of once and for all. dont use recycled sand under indian! and as i cannot gaurantee its performance for my customers then i wont use it again. theres plenty of guys in the area suffering so guess i wanted to get to the bottom of it for all our sakes. we never stop learning and as ive only being going 5 years then i accept i will learn constantly ??? its great having an oppertunity to hear peoples oppinions even when they differ.. as for sand you struggle to buy it loose from merchants now and bulk bags are between £38-45.00 the recycled stuff made sense before its limits were exposed. joys of learning eh.... :;):

[ambient]

i suppose science does play a role in evrything we do in construction, most of us guys doing the manual side of things tend not to think to deep :p i had a problem that i think ive got to the bottom of once and for all. dont use recycled sand under indian! and as i cannot gaurantee its performance for my customers then i wont use it again. theres plenty of guys in the area suffering so guess i wanted to get to the bottom of it for all our sakes. we never stop learning and as ive only being going 5 years then i accept i will learn constantly ??? its great having an oppertunity to hear peoples oppinions even when they differ.. as for sand you struggle to buy it loose from merchants now and bulk bags are between £38-45.00 the recycled stuff made sense before its limits were exposed. joys of learning eh.... :;):

i buy 20 ton loads only about £16+vat per ton ???

[msh paving]

same hear, sand ranges from £15-19 ton delivered,or straight from sand pit on back off tranny or cargo lorry,
1 ton bag's are robbery in the daylight hours,i guess if you not near a quarry you have to have bulk bags but they only contain 850kg min to a max if its a wet day 1 ton read the notice in the builders merchant MSH

[topgrafter2007]

WOW! were are you guys? it seems expensive up here then could buy it in bulk loads to get the price down but that only if you got somewhere to stockpile it. i work from home and dont think missus would appreciate 20ton sand on her daffs! lol cheapest gritsand round here collected 33quid a ton! dosent help when you got certain big merchants price fixxing as usual

[msh paving]

Is there no sand quarrys up there.....? or is all the sand in found in Norfolk......

if we have up to 10ton delivered you pay the 10 ton rate,but there are guys delivering on small 7.5 ton wagons for less,i dont have a stockpile just get it as needed on my 7.5tonner MSH

[topgrafter2007]

no quarrys or sand/gravel pits round here. plenty of beach though! council sells that sand out of town by the truck loads. dozens of them a day! nah its totally different up here most set ups are small teams 3 or 4 lads with smaller trucks, ours only 3500kg Iveco. funny you wouldnt think it so different from one end of country to the other.. ???

[Tony McC]

In Blackpool. you'd get Mersey Grit, which is brought in all the way from Southport. You can get a 16T load from someone like Stan Stock for around 18 quid per tonne - that was the price paid for a delivery to Lytham last October.

[oioisonnyboy]

Hey TG
I think it has been mentioned before in this thread, ever tried the recycled glass sand? Its available from Hanson and probably other decent sized aggregate suppliers round your neck of the woods. It is a mix of all different glass colours (looks a bit funky when it comes out the tipper) :p but cheaper than quarried and has certs as well. It is called glass sand or IBA (Incinerator bottom ash, its a by product from power stations mixed with glass)

It is not bad to work with, contains very little dust particles, almost all well graded angular "sand". Here in kent and essex many block paving firms (tollys, modular paving etc) like it because you can wack it and lay blocks on it even when its raining a lot better than quarried sands.

There is als a recycled glass shingle made of the same stuff, again a lot cheaper.
At the moment quarried sand == 17.00/t
crushed granite sand == 15.00/t
IBA/glass sand ==12-13.00/t

quarried shingle ==18.00/t
granite chips ==15.0/t
IBA 10-20mm ==11.00/t

here in the "Geologically impoverished" SE of England

[topgrafter2007]

thanx guys, will have ring round. trouble is with being small set up we rarely use more than 10ton on a job so tend to go local merchants. but there all giving up on lose sands etc. and the councils on form here if you leave stuff on the pavements for more than 10mins never heard of the glass type sands tho. interesting to know! and theres not many quarrys round here to source from in small loads.

[Hux]

Threads moved on a bit since I last posted. Just to say ref dodgey sand as a reason for failure with my Indian paving lifting, I had been using top notch building sand (£30inc/ton loose from nearest supplier) and nearly all paving lifted. I prefer using building sand as I find it more malleable than sharp, and always felt its' adhesion properties were better. We had done brick at same time with same mix and it was fine. Recently found product that could stick paving back onto the sound mortar called Epilite and is made by Nuffins. Worked great on the test piece I tried. One problem though-if you buy a kg at a time it'll set you back with vat and delivery...£50+. Next shock was that 1kg only does 1/2m2!!! As you may have guessed, this wont be the solution I choose. May try and get hold of some epoxy that is used for resin bonding, this should be alot cheaper. Seen some interesting products on American, Canadian and Aussie websites where they seem to use alot more of these modern products. They even had products that allowed you to glue new paving onto existing paving or solid base, that came in cartridges for mastic guns! Could be the dawn of a new paving era!!

[lutonlagerlout]

i very much doubt it!
LLL ???

[Tony McC]

Products such as Epilite are intended as emergency repair solutions, hence the cost. You couldn't reasonably use them to pave larger areas, and why would you when SBR can do more-or-less the same job?

Returning to the dodgy sand topic, I was talking about a seemingly unrelated problem with a manufacturer last week. Block layers have noticed some problems with excessive fluidisation of the laying course when a glass sand is used. In layman's terms, the laying course turns into a soup and the paving starts to move - slightly simplistic explanation, but it gives you the picture.

This problem has been identified as stemming from an Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) within the glass sand, and there are all sorts of tests taking place to find a remedy. However, it was suggested that this ASR could be the reason for the problems originally described way back...

If anyone else experiences similar problems, I'd very much like to know so I can pass on the information to the relevant people.