Having a professionally paved patio can make a tremendous difference to how your outdoor entertaining area is valued and the right look can really complement and enhance the appeal of your valuable outdoor furniture, not matter if its aluminum, wicker, teak or resin.
The paving material can be stone, brick or concrete and come in block or slab forms, and must be laid on a very firm base. The base is usually made up of compacted sand, mixed with stone fragments and using cement mortar as a binding agent.
The base then has to uniformly compacted until there are no soft spots, and then has to be level using a screening material such as a layer of fine sand. Don't try to do the compacting using just your feet, but hire a good quality compactor that will quickly and easily generate a level and consistently dense base on which to lay the pavers.You should be prepared to spend as much time as need on this process, as the better the base is prepared the easier the whole paving process will be. This will also result in your paving remain neat and level for a very long time.
The more weight that is going to be loaded onto the paced area (such as parked automobiles), the better the quality of the paving and the base must be. An inferior base will quickly show dips and hollows under the high loading.
Poor quality or pavers that are too think will easily crack under the weight of the parked vehicles and quickly degrade the appearance of the surface. If you are going to have heavy objects on the paving, such as vehicles, then you should use pavers that are at least 100mm (4 inches) in thickness.
If the surface is only going to experience light loading (such as general foot traffic), then it will be safe to use much thinner paver, even as low as 25mm (1 inch) in thickness.
Natural materials (such as rock slabs or paving stones) create a much more informal look, but you must also expect the occasional crack to occur around the edges of these slabs. This is due to natural imperfections (such as cracks and joints) in the material) , as well as the material not being of a uniform in thickness. This all adds to the natural charm of the material.
Brick paving comes in almost unbelievable range of colours, styles, finishes and sizes, so their should be a style for everyone. But, choose carefully because if you put the wrong type of brick paving down, your paved area can start to rapidly look like a car parking area rather than a "human" friendly relation zone. A good rule of thumb here, is the bigger the paving blocks, the less it looks like a car parking area.
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If you are thinking of creating a patio, courtyard or path within your garden, then I have some helpful information for you.