The Brew Cabin

I have actually 2 questions, i'm thinking on paving my pool deck (over the old concrete) I actually have a couple of questions if someone knows...

How would you handle a screened pool enclosure? pave up to the aluminum rail screwed into the deck?

How would you allow for drainage? current concrete deck slopes back toward the house where there is a drain channel...would you leave this open? it would obviously sit much lower as it is, should it be raised? or one of those drainage channel pavers used?

I'm very confused with how pavers drain....my deck has some cracking and i'm going to morter seal it before pavers but since the pool area is elevated with a 6 foot retaining wall at one end i want to make sure water will drain as the wall isn't designed for moisture under the deck (although i am leaving the old concrete deck)

Thanks for any helpful information...
shawn

Hi Shawn,

I'm not overly familiar with screened pool enclosures - we don't have much call for them here in soggy Warrington (England), unlike you lucky sods in Florida-land, but I'll see if I can help...

Given that this is likely to be a very wet environment, I reckon you need to opt for a rigid construction, which mean laying the pavers on a bed or mortar over the top of the existing concrete base. In theory, you could use a flexible construction, but if you did, I'd strongly recommend it be sealed to prevent saturation of the bedding layer.

The aluminium rail - I assume this is some sort of guard rail attached to the existing concrete surface via anchor bolts. There are two ways of dealing with this. If the height of the rail is critical (ie, it must be a certain height above floor level) then it could be detached, set aside while the area is re-paved, and then fastened to the new surfacing once the bedding/jointing has cured. Alternatively, you could pave around the downstands and fill in any gaps with the mortar used for jointing.

Drainage - water will run over the surface of the paving, just as it runs over the concrete deck at the moment, so, if you match the current falls, any surface water will drain as it did before, into the open channel you mention. Given that the drop to the channel will be increased by the thickness of the paver plus the bedding, then it may be worth elevating the existing channel, or installing a new one at a higher level, but, without knowing the exact layout or the type of pavers you propose using, it's not possible to state which would be the best option.

Are you diy-ing this or bringing in a contractor?

Tony, wouldn't you know it, I completely missed seeing the UK in the boards description, forgive me if I intruded.

I will probably contract this out, theres alot of curves and angles around the pool area, it will be alot of cutting....though who knows around here in florida finding contractors is pretty tough.

Yeah the rain worries me a little, though the sceen does break up alot of the direct hard rain. From what i've read most contractors here use sand, then mortoring the edges. I agree i think i'd have to seal them.

The aluminum rail I was speaking of, Basically these enclosures have a horizontal bar anchored with bolts into the concrete which runs around the entire deck. Then the vertical bars go up from the top of those every X number of feet, then of course the horizontal for the roof etc. But I think you answered my ? and thats to pave right up to that base horizontal frame.

Thanks for answering my questions it helped alot!
shawn

I don't think you've intruded, Shawn - I just thought it was important you understood that my experience of sunny weather, pools outside the back door and 'screen enclosures' is somewhat limited.

When it comes to finding a local contractor, try the ICPI site - they're the trade body for what you call Paver Installers in the States and should be able to put you on to someone in Florida-land. But, if you get really stuck, I know a really good paving expert who could be flown out to Florida from Warrington quite cheaply and is happy working for beer and bacon butties (Oops! Sandwiches, to you) ;)

haha tony funny you should mention that, I was running a new electrical wire in the attic this weekend this place is about 15 years old, I found 2 empty six packs, a couple of budwiser bottles and thats just 1 wall, seems most florida contractors work for beer too =)

Well if you head this way I have to warn you florida is generally considered a roque state by most in the US, we have prehistoric bugs the size of small cars (thus screen enclosures aka last line of defense), small pets get eaten by gators, we love to scare tourist with shark stories =) and we give thanks on sundays to the 'creators' who make life in florida possible, aka inventors of the air conditioning and beer, if we ever fight for independence from the states, I'm pretty sure those will be the national symbols.

Tremendous site btw, it was the only one I could find to ask questions, i've been looking for paver info for a month!

I did have another question, have you seen larger sand set concrete pavers? they're 12x12, I'm wondering if they really hold as well as the small pavers, i walked on some and they didn't seem as stable and interlocking as the traditional small pavers, seems the pavers get they're longevity and strength from the interlocking, i dont see how a 12x 12 can offer this without being mortered. It looks like they bond some type of decorative surface on top as the color, etc isn't usually all the way through i'm also curious how well that holds up in the long term too.

12x12? I assume you mean 12 inches - we're metric in Europe, so we use 300x300mm.

Anyway, 300x300 is the threshold of what we term as paving blocks and what is known as 'small element paving'. These start at 300x300, then 400x400 (what's that: about 16", I think) and then 450x450 (18"x18" ).

This small element paving is only really taking off in the UK/RoI over the last 10 years or so, but we predict it will become more and more popular, especially for civil and commercial schemes, as it offers all the benefits of an elemental paving at a cost below that of decorative block paving, and offers fast installation, too.

Properly laid, there's no problem of stability or interlock with small element paving. Some of the leading research into the subject has been carried out under the auspices of Prof. John Knapton and you can read some of his findings on the SEPT site.

Tony thanks for answering my questions, you sound like the expert to me! I have one more if you dont mind...

This one is complicated but I'll try to make it short. I'm on a slope, as the slope goes back (down) away from the house concrete blocks were built up in a square. So basically at the end is a 5 foot wall, the pool deck is laid on top of that and the pool beam, in the middle of the raised deck (square) is the pool. Over the coarse of 13 years from what i can gather (don't know the history) the backfill dirt settled. The existing concrete deck was shabbily constructed, no rebar, fibercloth, and in some areas is only 2 inches thick =) also a long time ago the previous owners put an old heavy hottub on the back end where its 2 inches. Big crack. There is other cracking too from the air beneath the deck and the loose fill....some pretty bad. Its been patched over the years but its bad enough to warrent replacement.

So heres possible solutions and thier problems:
1) acrylic decking, deco concrete etc...no way...too much cracking for them to last.
2) remove old deck, fill, compact, pour new deck.
3) morter cracks, paver over the old concrete deck use retrofit paver pool coping. Problem: because of the air under the old deck, Will be some movement from the old cracked concrete i'm sure, though not immediate i'm sure any year some of the cracked areas could drop an inch or so too. I could possibly saw cut some holes in the deck and pour some concrete to give the areas that haven't dropped a 'base', either way you can see this one isn't ideal...

Another idea i thought of was cutting the old deck out, then using pavers directly on the backfill (with base of course). Problem here is the back wall wasn't designed for moisture to permeate the fill creating more weight. So for this idea to work, the pavers would have to be pretty water tight, though i could probably have some weep holes put in the wall, but considering its age as dry as possible is preferable. I wondered if there is some watertight membrane I could put below the pavers..I would think rooftop patios, parking garages, etc use something like this? I'm not too sure of this idea but it was one i was considering, any clue on this?

*whew* its complicated because a) its a raised deck, b) involves a pool in the center c) has a retaining wall under the back deck ....nothing you'll find info on in a paver brosure =)

This is a tough one, Shawn. My favourite solution would be to rip out and start again, but this, I appreciate, would be terribly expensive.

If you follow your preferred option of replacing the cracked/dropping concrete with pavers, then the 'membrane' you need is known in the UK as a Drainage Composite - you can read more about them on the Fin Drains page of this site, but I've no idea where you would find them in the US. These composites collect any water that finds its way beneath the paving and channel it to a convenient disposal point.

However, given the scale of the work, I think it may well be worth asking a local contractor to inspect the site and give you advice on the best way to proceed. Builkding methods and materiuals are vastly different in the US and what seems like a good idea to me may not be feasible, or even legal, in your country.

haha yeah that was my first option too, tear out concrete and replace... Got stood up on 2 appointments again today, 1 concrete, 1 pool...I really think this is just a symptom of florida. Its been a case of 1 doesn't do the other, and the reliable ones dont seem to touch concrete. Thus investigation of various decking materials as pavers, composite wood decking people i know i can get over, theres some pluses and minues given the setup for each so I'll just have to look at the various options and see what i come up with. Thanks for the paver info, it was a great help.