Rocking paving stones

Jun 17, 2013 7 Replies

Especially after a drink or two. Seriously, several the paviours in my patio have started to rock slightly. What is the easiest way of dealing with this and steadying them?


How were they laid? (i.e. solid bed, onto a tamped screed of sharp sand, or dot'n'dabs of mortar

Lift them, they're heavy. Get the sand bed under them good & flat at the right level, and plonk the slab back down. They're heavy. Oh, and theyre heavy,

NT

dot'n'dab isn't laying - it is somewhere between a hope and a prayer!

But it is the right question.

The next one is which sort of paviour?

  1. (Engineering / Civil Engineering) a person who lays paving
  2. (Engineering / Civil Engineering) a machine for ramming down paving
  3. (Engineering / Civil Engineering) material used for paving

Guessing 3. - what sort of material/size?

level, and plonk the slab back down. They're heavy. Oh, and theyre heavy,

Just sorted a load in my back garden and I will second ..."They're heavy. Oh, and theyre heavy," ... What I did was got a couple of old broom handles and if you can get one edge on to one of them you can push it back easily and just place the second broom handle under it before it rolls past the halfway mark. then just roll back and position. You will still end up with some heavy work but it does make some of it easier.

Proper size paving slabs are but I wouldn't call them paviours... Paviours to me means those roughly 15" square thingies. Still capeable of a nasty finger nip but they aren't glued to the ground. B-)

And possibly work out whats failed to cause the rocking so it doesn't fail again. I suspect it's dot 'n dab one a poor sub-base that has washed away by rain flowing down between the paviours. Dot 'n dab is quick and easy compared to a decent firmed up, leveled with drainage slope, smooth sub base.

Saw the council leveling all the paviers along the high street many years ago, they had a vacuum slab lifting machine, bloody brilliant, position the base of the machine next to the slab to be lifted, start the engine, lower the box that looked a little like a hover craft hull dowon to the slab, engine revs up, pull on the lever and up comes the slab,

Bloke chucks some sand under, levels it out, and down with the slab, usually job done... release vacuum, onto next slab, occasionally i saw them have 2 or 3 goes at getting the slab level,

Would have loved to be able to hire one of them to level my parents patio, instead we fannied about for 2 days with a crowbar, screwdrivers, pinched fingers, f***ed backs, and there are still some that wobble a bit.

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