Cosmetic remedy to frost damage

[john hamilton]

These paved front driveway tiles came with the house when I bought it. Some of the tiles are cracking and some spliting due to frost damage, (in London, U.K.).

See photo on Tinypic website:

Underneath the tiles is very solid and sound and I have no reason to disturb it. I would like to do something to improve the appearence, preferably without incurring any big expense or digging up these glazed tiles.

Laying a coating of cement on top would be difficult for me and I think would not look so good. I'm looking for a fairly easy method within the capabilities of a layman if possible. Thanks for any suggestions.

[Jim Elbrecht]

IMO, the best part of 'pavers' as we call them on this side of the pond is that anyone can replace them- and you can replace the broken ones without making a huge deal of it.

The hardest part might be finding matching tiles-- If I had troubles I'd just go with a complimentary color. Dig out the old ones- throw in some fines & pound into place with a 4-5lb rubber mallet until flush. Grout & pop a brew.

OTOH- I don't know what that material is between your tiles. Looks like some sore of grout or blacktop.

Jim [I never noticed the ads on the tinypic site before. I just might order a hat or mug with that image.]

[norminn]

Best fix I can think of would be to take a tile from a less conspicuous area along an edge and use it to replace the worst ones and, perhaps, buy new tiles to fill in where you took from. Dyed concrete might work, but seems it would stick out like a sore thumb. Sure they are glazed? Sealing might help with the freeze damage in the future.

[Jim Elbrecht]

On second look- they might not be what we call pavers, as they are most commonly put over a porous base of crushed stone and fines. From the way that crack extends across several courses, I think there must be concrete underneath the tiles, or it is stamped concrete.

Have you dug one up to see how thick & what your base is?

Jim

[cshenk]

"Jim Elbrecht" wrote

Hi Jim, educate me? I get the crushed stone but what is 'fines'?

[aemeijers]

Looks like typical spalling to me. Likely from salt-laden water getting below the fired (not glazed) surface and freezing. Let me guess, there is usually a puddle right there in winter? Prying out the damaged bricks and replacing them, if you can find matching ones, is the only real spot repair. Or like another poster said, use a different color, like granite maybe. If you can pry out one brick to use as a sample, the brickyard folks would be happy to show you the styles available in that size. I suspect these are full-depth brick on a crushed stone base, otherwise the low spot would not have formed. A brick drive like this should really be sand-bedded, not set in mortar or grout, so the water can drain through. A well-laid brick street can last a century with few problems. Old street pavers, even after being buried under tarmac for fifty years, are still snapped up for people who want them for back patios.

[Jim Elbrecht]

Might be regional, sometimes called screenings, I think.-- It looks almost like concrete with messy little bits of stone mixed in. I get mine where I get my pavers. [about $15 for a 1/2ton scoop of it]

It packs to nearly the consistency of concrete, but is still somewhat porous.

FWIW- Some folks mix the fines and #2 stone. I prefer a *machine* compacted soil base, landscape cloth,

4" #2 stone- *machine* compacted, landscape cloth, 2" fines- machine compacted. Then I lay my pavers one at a time with a 4-5lb deadblow hammer, using another 1/2" or so of fines to 'set' them. *Not* the way to do it if you're trying to make a living at it- but the patio I built 5 yrs ago is still nearly perfect. And we've had some weather here in NY over the past 5 years.

Jim

[John Whitworth]

Great, isn't it. I've just ordered a Doggie Ringer T-shirt. ;-)