By Koper – America’s #1 Connected ContractorTM, Free Augmented Article©
By using a carefully graded sand bed, you can easily build a durable and attractive brick walkway on your property. Because you do not need to use mortar, this technique will save you time as well as money.
Installing Brick Pavers in Oakland County, Michigan
There are a number of reasons why you might want to pave a walkway with brick: to make a path easier and safer to walk on, to add elegance to your yard or to guide foot traffic to outside steps, a door or a patio.
Before you start digging, it is important to plan carefully where \ the walkway will go and what shape it will take. Often the best place for a brick walkway is where people tend to walk, as indicated by worn grass. The most effective way to do this is by drawing a picture of your yard on graph paper.
By sketching possible routes and shapes of walkways in this diagram, you can try various options before choosing one that will suit the requirements of your yard.
Standard bricks measure four by eight inches, so you will need about 45 bricks to cover every 10 square feet of walkway. For rectangular walkways, calculate the square footage by multiplying the length by the width. For more complex patterns, draw the walkway so that one square of the graph paper equals one square foot. Then, simply count the squares inside the walkway to get the square footage. Order five percent extra to allow for breakage.
Bricks come in three basic varieties: SW, or severe weather; MW, or moderate weather; and NW, or no weather. It is a good idea to select SW paving or building bricks because they can withstand years of bad weather.
Bricks are available glazed and unglazed, with smooth, stipple and matte faces. Because smooth, glazed bricks can become slippery when wet, it is best to choose noticeably textured, unglazed bricks for paving a walkway.
To make your walkway last a long time, it is important to determine how water will drain off the path. Most walkways can be set up efficiently for drainage by designing them to slope 1/4 inch per foot. If the walkway will pass over a depression where water collects, you may need to put a drain line through the low area before you lay the bricks.
Keys to success
Grading and compressing the sand foundation properly will result in a walkway where the bricks will not shift over time.
Although they may look attractive, avoid used bricks. Most old bricks are not weather resistant and will deteriorate quickly. While new, weather-resistant bricks are more expensive, they will make up the extra cost by lasting much longer.
A simple or complex pattern of bricks can dramatically affect the appearance of a walkway. Take the time to choose a pattern that will best suit your yard and house
Tools
- Trowel
- Carpenter’s level
- Garden hose
- Rake
- Flat-bladed shovel
- Wide broom
- Pointed spade
- Wooden stakes
- Gloves
- String
- 2×4
- Mallet
- Bricklayer’s hammer
- Brickset Tamp
Planning
Determine the length, shape and position of the walkway by drawing it to scale on a piece of graph paper
Figure the area that the walkway will cover so you can accurate calculate the number of bricks.
If bricks are not delivered on a pallet, build a wooden platform near the planned walkway. Stack the bricks on the platform and cover them with plastic
Materials
- Laths, about 1/2 inch by 1 inch
- Bricks Coarse sand Fine sand Roofing felt or landscape fabric Lumber for edge guides Screen for sifting sand
Step-By-Step
- Cut laths to size.
- Mark the walkway area with stakes and a string guide line.
- Remove eight inches of earth.
- Shovel in a bed of sand.
- Lay the bricks.
- Fill the joints between bricks with sand.
Cutting bricks
There may be occasions as you are building the walkway when you must cut a brick.
Some bricks are soft enough to be cut with the blow of a trowel. It takes practice, however, to create an even or accurate cut this way. Although it is a little more time consuming, you can guarantee an accurate cut by using a brickset, also known as a mason’s chisel.
Begin by scoring a line around the brick where you want to cut it by tapping the brickset against the brick surface with a hammer. Then, place the brick on a firm and even surface, align the brick-set with the scored line and strike it with one hard blow of a hammer. Trim the rough edges with the brickset.
If a hardened brick proves difficult to cut in this way, use a power saw with a blade designed to cut masonry. When cutting bricks, make sure to wear safety goggles to protect your eyes from flying brick chips.
Preparing the Ground for Bricks
- Drive stakes into the ground along the perimeter of the walkway. Stretch string firmly around the stakes to establish a guide line.
- Use a carpenter’s level to check that the string is level. Then, lower one end of the string 1/4 inch per foot in the direction where water will drain.
- Inside the perimeter established by the string, dig a trench 8 inches deep. Make sure that you keep the sides as vertical as possible.
- If the walkway will butt up against the foundation of outdoor steps, be careful not to undercut the steps
by removing soil under them. - Fill the trench halfway with coarse sand. Use the back of a rake to even the surface of the sand; pack it down with a tamp.
- Add fine sand to fill up the trench to the height of the string. Fine sand can be obtained by sifting coarse sand through a screen.
- Use a tamp to pack and even the bed of fine sand. Add extra sand to areas where there are dips and holes. Tamp these areas flat.
- Sink wooden edge guides into the sand to 2 inches below the string. Smooth the bed by dragging a 2×4 across the edge guides.
- Place a brick on top of an edge guide. Adjust the height of the edge guide if the top surface of the brick is not even with the string.
- Place a carpenter’s level on top of the edge guides to make sure that they slope correctly for drainage. Adjust the edge guides if necessary.
- Check the surface of the bed again. Shovel more fine sand into any holes and depressions exposed when the 2×4 was dragged over the edge guides.
- Sprinkle fine sand over the entire surface so that the sand is slightly higher than the edge guides. Smooth the sand with the back of the rake.
- Lay the 2×4 across the edge guides. Move it carefully back and forth to smooth the surface and remove sandthat lies above the level of the edge guides.
- Dampen the surface of the sand with water from a garden hose. This forces air out of pockets in the sand bed. These pockets could cause settling problems later.
- Carefully remove the wooden edge guides from the sand. While doing so, stand on a wide board so as not to damage the surface of the sand bed.
- Use more fine sand to fill in the spaces left by the removal of the edge guides. With a trowel, carefully flatten the surface.
- Sprinkle water over the entire bed and wait 30 minutes. Fill in any hollow spots that appear when
the sand settles. - Use a tamp to pack the areas where new sand has been added. The entire surface should be uniformly smooth and even.
Laying the Bricks
- Check the guide string to make sure that it is tight and correctly reflects the drainage slope,
- Lay bricks along the edge created by the string. The edges of the bricks should align with the string.
- Place the first row of bricks directly against the foundation. Make sure they fit solidly and securely.
- Use a mallet to tap each brick so that it is flat and exactly even with the height of the string.
- Leave a uniform space of about 1/8 of an inch between bricks. These joints will be filled in later with sand.
- Lay a long scrap 2×4 along the top of the bricks to check that they are all even with each other.
- Lay a carpenter’s level on the 2×4 to check the slope. Do this for each row of bricks.
- Make adjustments by tapping the 2×4 with a hammer. Never strike the bricks themselves.
Tips
- If you desire uniformly colored bricks, buy them in one lot.
- After laying the bricks in the bed of sand, sprinkle dry mortar instead of sand over them. Sweep the mortar into the joints and dampen it with water. The mortar bonds the bricks for an especially long-lasting brick walkway.
- Set an edging of brick or wood along the walkway to keep the bricks from shifting
Filling the Joints
- Spread a layer of fine sand over the bricks. Sprinkle lightly with water, making sure not to wash any sand away.
- Sweep the sand into the joints with a broom. Continue adding more sand and water until the joints are completely filled.
Stopping Weeds
An easy way to prevent weeds from growing between the joints in the walkway is to place a layer of roofing felt, landscaping fabric or plastic sheeting between the sand and bricks. Use a knife to cut holes in the material for drainage.
An Array of Patterns
Bricks can be laid in a number of different patterns depending on personal taste. Patterns can even be mixed for a pleasing effect.
Running bond (1) and modified running bond (2) are the easiest to lay and work well on small areas. Basket weave (3) and modified ladder weave (4) work well in larger areas, because it takes more pattern repetitions for the eye to recognize these rather complicated patterns.
You can also use smaller bricks to create a tighter design and more woven appearance, such as in the running bond (5), modified running bond (6) and diagonal running bond (7). Because the proportions of smaller bricks are not equal to regular-sized bricks, adaptations may need to be made. The basketweave for small bricks (8) will work by adding an extra brick to each square in the pattern.
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