Circular paver driveway

[txdon]

Don, I see you have rebar in your curb. Do you have some verticals in the pour every once in a while that go down into your sandy ground or are you
depending on the weight of the concrete to control lateral shifting and or frost heave?
A vehicle's weight operating in that tight curve will create a lot of force toward the outside. Your doing a great job and the design goes very well with your house.
Ron

Ron, I have verticals about every 20 feet that tie to the cross sections, however there is no frost heave this far south.

The circle is really an oval and on the part where it is the shortest curve the inside curbing is 16" wide 6"-7" in depth and with 4-5 pieces of rebar. That will be the area the back tire of larger vehicles will most likely ride on the curb.

The drive also has an inward tilt so the is water draining to the center except for one area in the lower back where I will construct a drain in the cross section piece. I'll post pics of that when I get to that section. Water drainage has been a the main consideration during the construction of this project.

 

[EddieWalker]

WOW, that's a lot of rebar!!!!!

Eddie

 

[txdon]

And we're off.

First I smoothed out a layer of coarse sand on about 1/3 of the section.

The first row of paver ended up exactly at 49 pavers. I started the second row with a half paver and now I need more 1/4" spacers.

Section One will be 49 pavers by 29 pavers and I will only have to cut about 30 pavers.

 

[dstig1]

Looks like a really nice project, albeit a big one. I'm curious about the curves - what are the approximate inside and outer diameter/radius of the paver area? I'm curious as to what might be considered "reasonable" for those figures, so I will be curious to follow your progress.

 

[txdon]

Looks like a really nice project, albeit a big one. I'm curious about the curves - what are the approximate inside and outer diameter/radius of the paver area? I'm curious as to what might be considered "reasonable" for those figures, so I will be curious to follow your progress.

dstig1, the driveway goes around two large oak trees so it is oval. I drove my F150 around in a circle in the field to make sure I had enough room and then I made it a little larger. Since it's not a perfect circle do you want the smallest side's diameter/inside/outside?

I was not satisfies with the wood spacers so today was mostly a day spent at Lowe's looking for something that could be used as spacers. Everything in the tile section was "X" spacers, which will not work, and the "T" spacers were too small.

The perfect spacers are these and I will try to contact them when they are back from the Holidays tomorrow. I need 10 per sq foot, that would be about 22,222 spacers.
http://www.endicott.com/pdf/Endicott_PaverSpacers.pdf

I wanted to get going today so I did get a 1/4" foam board. It cut easy and fast and they seem to work OK, I just have to put 4 small squares down for each paver, kind of time consuming.
I think they are small enough, and I placed them so I can leave them and pour the polymer sand onto and around them.


I can get enough squares from the $42 foam board to complete the project.

 

[Ranger Rick]

Do you really need to leave the spacers in permanently. I would think that you would just use them to lay out your bricks and then your sand would keep them spaced in the finished product. The man that did my bath tile used the x spacers stood up and pulled them out before he grouted the tile. Could you do the same thing since your sand is like grout. Then you could have spacers that you could reuse as each section is completed.
Rick

 

[EddieWalker]

Are you using a skree board? How are you getting the sand under the pavers level?

I found that a pair of pvc pipes works great for this. Lay dow the pipes, dump the sand, the skree off the sand. Take out the pipes and fill in the area that the pipes left with a trowel and smooth out. A 3/4 inch pipe is one inch OD.

Eddie

 

[txdon]

Do you really need to leave the spacers in permanently. I would think that you would just use them to lay out your bricks and then your sand would keep them spaced in the finished product. The man that did my bath tile used the x spacers stood up and pulled them out before he grouted the tile. Could you do the same thing since your sand is like grout. Then you could have spacers that you could reuse as each section is completed.
Rick

Since the pavers are taller than tile it is almost impossible to remove the spacers unless they are higher than the pavers. When the spacers are higher than the pavers, like the wood was it is hard to check the level over a large lay. Kind of a catch 22. That is why I went with the inexpensive foam board I can cut the 40,000 little squares with a blade at night or when I need a break from kneeling. At 10 for a cent, the price is negligible.

The Endicott paver spacers would be hard to re-use also because they are lower than the top of the paver. The advantage would be speed using 1/3 as many but the price will be higher, I'll find out tomorrow how much higher.

Eddie I skreeded the gravel and now I'm just troweling the sand level and tapping the pavers with a rubber hammer level as I go. As I get father from the level curb I'll try using the PVC pipe as you suggest. I now remember seeing that done on TV, Thanks.

 

[dstig1]

I'm just curious what you are roughly looking at for radii for comparison. So maybe a biggest and smallest, or thereabouts. I caught that it was oval, so something approximate is fine.

 

[pacerron]

Since the pavers are taller than tile it is almost impossible to remove the spacers unless they are higher than the pavers. When the spacers are higher than the pavers, like the wood was it is hard to check the level over a large lay. Kind of a catch 22. That is why I went with the inexpensive foam board I can cut the 40,000 little squares with a blade at night or when I need a break from kneeling. At 10 for a cent, the price is negligible.

The Endicott paver spacers would be hard to re-use also because they are lower than the top of the paver. The advantage would be speed using 1/3 as many but the price will be higher, I'll find out tomorrow how much higher.
.

Don
I vote with Ranger Rick.
If you get a bag of spacers for floor tile that make 0.25 space and use them vertically the height of the pavers is not a factor. The spacers are small enough that you can use 2 on each end and sides for second row and have plenty of space to lay your level between them. You can pull them out easily
and after a short time you will see how they even help you level the stones by seeing if they are cocked or level. I did large floor tile in our TV room, kitchen, and flower room that way 20 years ago and they worked great.
Attached a picture from the net of vertical spacer.
Ron