The Brew Cabin

I have been asked to do a paving job that requires about 12m2 of 50mm clay pavers to be laid in front of a garage. Two paving strips will run up to meet this area from the street. These strips provide plenty of room for an old M.G to be taken out on the occasional weekend. A builder has poured the concrete base for the strips and area at the front of the garage. My problem is that this new paving has to blend in with existing paving (60m2) which is all butt jointed herringbone pattern on crushed rock and sand. Can i screed a 20mm bed of sand /cement blend over the concrete base and lay the 50mm pavers on this, and then run a compacting plate over the top? I can't leave a gap between the pavers as this will not blend in with the existing paving.
Have you got any tips?
Thanks for a terrific site!

Chris

I'm glad you like the site, Chris! :)

What you are proposing is to lay clay pavers as a rigid pavement to your two strips, and attempt to make it look not too dis-similar to the existing flexible paving. Normally, your methodology would be frowned upon, as rigid paving should really have mortared joints, but, for the scale of the job in hand, I think you might just get away with it.

The outer edges of the two strips need to be bedded on a class 1 mortar (assuming there is not enough depth for a concrete bed) and then haunched as per usual, leaving the inner 'body', which will be pretty narrow. I'd actually be tempted to lay these blocks on clean (ie, no cement) grit sand, but you could use a weak, semi-dry mix if you prefer, say 10:1, with *no added water*. Screed and lay the blocks as for flexible paving, and then compact with the wacker plate.
If you use a wet mortar to bed the blocks, the wacker plate will pump the mortar up and out via the joints, making a right bloody mess of the paving in the process. Using a semi-dry mix, or clean grit sand, and then brushing in jointing sand before compaction will help avoid that happening. The mortar-bedded and properly haunched edge courses will hold the paving in place, so they neeed to be laid at least 48 hours (at this time of year) before the wackering takes place.

Does that help?