Brick Paver Polymeric Sand for Paver Driveway

This past week in Ann Arbor we did a brick paver repair, cleaning, and polymeric sanding of a paver driveway. The paver repair was minor but we needed to do an aggressive cleaning of the pavers and paver joints. The customer complained he was experiencing weeds, grass, and excessive moss growth in their paver driveway.

The customer told me that they had the paver driveway installed about 5 years ago but they have not had any brick paver maintenance done. They have NOT swept in any paver joint sand since the paving stones have been installed!

Due to this neglect, the paver joints have been a breeding ground for the growth of weeds, grass, and moss.  The paving stones exhibited black soot and mold growth on the surface, thus inhibited the beauty and color of their interlocking pavers.

We started by spending over 6 hours aggressively power washing the paving stones and paver joints. We first made wet the paver driveway and agitated it with a stiff bristled brush and combination of water, bleach, and Oxy Clean solution. This special concoction helped cleaned the surface but power washing was necessary to completely deep clean the surface of the paving stones.

We then returned a couple of days later when all the paving stones and paver joints where dry so we could properly sweep in polymeric sand. In this particular paver driveway project, we used Pave Tech's SANDLOCK polymeric sand. We find this product to be durable and long lasting.

After vigorously sweeping the polymeric sand into the paver joints at a 45 degree angle, we use a simple leaf blower to blow off carefully the excess polymeric sand from the surface of the paving stones. It is important not to blow the polymeric sand out of the paver joints.

The final step is to wet the polymeric sand so the bonding of the polymers can begin. We began by gently misting all the paving stones and paver joints to begin the process. After lightly wetting the paver driveway, we gently misted paver areas so the polymeric sand was thoroughly soaked. We started at the highest point and worked our way down to the street, making sure that there is no run off or puddling. If there where any puddles, we used a simple wisk broom to remove excess puddled water.

When we completed the polymeric sand application, we instructed the homeowner to stay off the paver driveway for 24 hours to insure no tracking of the polymeric sand. The polymeric sand usually starts to harden after an hour but no need to push it.  Our customer was ecstatic with the results and I took the time to educate them on future brick paver maintenance to insure a less costly event.