Cement Paver Patio Base

[Mary Meyer]

Husband and I are fixing up a rental home and want to add a patio. We have thick cement pavers and are looking for the right base material. I've heard everything from crushed granite (expensive!!) to limestone, to crushed concrete to stabilized sand. We live in Houston Texas so it very wet. What have you tried? What do you recommend?

[Bob H.]

I once built one of those. I used plain, medium-sized gravel with sand on top of it, then more sand to sweep into the joints once the pavers were down. It worked well.

The one thing I'd change is that I saved a little money by not renting a compacting machine to settle the base. Because of that decision, I probably had a little more uneven settlement than necessary. My main problem over the years, though, was that a tree nearby had roots under the patio and eventually would push up the pavers. That required removing some pavers and sand and trimming the roots in some areas before resetting the pavers.