Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Top Ten Reasons to Install Interlocking Pavingstones

In this modern age, there are many types of materials you can use to pave a surface. They vary from asphalt to bricks to natural stone. Each material comes with its own set of positives and negatives and based upon your project's needs, one will probably differentiate itself from the others. Interlocking Pavingstones will be featured in this discussion.



1. Increased Beauty- Add beauty and curb appeal

Pavingstones are a wonderful addition to any home. They add design elements that certain surfaces (e.g. asphalt) cannot hope to match. They allow a property to stand out as unique, and differentiate your house from the rest.

2. Design Options

Pavers allow for ultimate customization. There are hundreds of different possible blends. For instance, Pacific Interlock offers 20+ differently shaped profiles and over 15 standard colors! This allows you to pick the exact style to match your house. Natural products, such as brick and stone, are limited in the colors they come in, so they may not match your ideal plans.

3. Versatile

Pavingstones can also be used in a variety of settings. Certain products (e.g. some types of natural stone) cannot be subjected to vehicular traffic and are limited to pedestrian use. Likewise, many surfaces are designed to support vehicle traffic, but do not add value to your house (and may in fact take away value). Pavingstones can be used in many ways that other products cannot. Be sure to check out Permeable Pavingstones!

4.  Increased value to your home 

By increasing the beauty of your property, the value of your house should also increase. Installing attractive pavers can invigorate your landscape and give color, style and value to an area that was not adding as much benefit. You are making a worthwhile investment when you install pavingstones.



5. Guarantee

Many companies (including Pacific Interlock) guarantee their product for 30 years. If a company can stand behind their product like that, you can rest assured that this is a good long term investment.

6. Won't crack or break

In order to be considered a paving stone, the individual units must pass a PSI test. Pavers must meet 8000 psi (twice poured concrete's max psi). This, combined with the fact that pavers are individual units that can adjust with the earth's movement, prevents the cracking that can occur in other surfaces.

7.Price comparable to stamped concrete

Since pavers are a concrete product, they do not incur some of the costs that come from natural stone. They are a bit more than concrete or asphalt to install, but most of that difference comes in the labor aspect. The product costs tend to be very similar.

8.Quick and efficient installation process

The paver installation process is relatively simple and can be done by most do-it-yourselfers. It can be convenient to hire a team to do the work for you, but the process is something that can be done by the average homeowner...probably just not as quickly. The pavers require a layer of compacted base, a small layer of levelling sand and the pavers!

9. Easy Repairs

One of the best parts of pavers is that if you need to get to piping underneath, or repair an area where tree roots have uplifted, all you have to do is remove the pavers, do the underground work and put them back. The repair will not be noticeable like it would if you had to cut out a section of concrete and patch it. Even mortared in stone can make the process more difficult.

10. Long term lower cost

With the ability to do repairs easily and the fact that the pavers won't break will lead to a long term low investment cost. Asphalt, while the cheapest initially, requires maintenance every few years. Concrete, depending on the earth movement and degrees of cracking, may need to be repaired regularly. Natural stone may be subject to similar repairs and has a higher initial cost, so it does not offer the benefits of pavers either.


All of this said, this decision comes down to personal preference. Some people are looking for a quick and cheap solution while others love the look of natural stone (we do even offer pavers that mimic the look of natural stone). This list was composed to give a few topics to think about as you go about making this investment in your property.