No Walkway to Front Porch

[Carolina E.]

Hi BP.  We have a house that does not have a walkway from the sidewalk to the house.  It is about 30-40 feet from the sidewalk. The sidewalk was put in just a few year ago.  I noticed that other houses do not have walkways, but some have the driveway close to the entrance. We are going to get a quote and if it is too much we might not put one in for awhile, we will just do pavers.  Can anyone suggest any ideas?  The house does have an entrance from the garage.  Thanks.

[Account Closed]

@Carolina E.

First of all, I would encourage you to consider the zoning and code implications of your action. In some municipalities, if you touch the sidewalk or somehow engage it, you might need a certain kind of building permit. You can go to the City of Chicago's (or suburb's) website and find the zoning requirement, and see what type of hassle you'd be in for. 

Second, with regards to pavers, I would encourage you to think twice. I would guess-timate that just pouring concrete will cost less than the hours of labor that it takes to lay down pavers. With concrete, you just dig a little trench, put in some gravel, pound and level it out, and pour concrete on top of that. It shouldn't cost all that much, and it's pretty fool-proof. With pavers you do all the first things, but the gravel should be deeper, and the cost of labor for pavers will most likely be higher (not to mention the pavers can be expensive as well) But as others mentioned the upkeep might be a bit much. Grass and weeds tend to grow in between pavers, you need to shovel and salt in the winter (especially in Chicago) and due to the freeze-thaw cycle the pavers tend to creep, move, bend and look unsightly after a short time (the frozen water expands, shifting the pavers around and out of alignment during the winter) All-in-all, I would imagine its a bit of a hassle, especially if people tend to enter through the garage. 

You might want to consider concrete or decorative "stepping-stone" type walkways. You get these concrete plates or perhaps stones and you just place them on the lawn to create a walkway. That's the cheapest and easiest way, but it's not accessible, and you still have the snow clearing issues. 

Good luck!