DIYers have always been big
on paving outdoor areas, but there's a huge difference
between throwing down a few pavers and taking the
time to do the job properly. So I'm going to show you how
to lay pavers like a pro. We'll cover tips for selecting
the right pavers for the job, preparing the area you're
paving, compacting the base course, how to get a good
smooth bedding surface, and how to lay your pavers. As part of council regulations,
the top of our pavers have to be at least 150 mil
below our internal floor height. Now if you do have
to dig out, make sure you have your
council plans on-hand because you don't want
to hit any plumbing or power under the ground. So let's work out
how many pavers we're going to need for this space. The distance from the house
to the post is 2.9 metres. The pavers are 600
millimetres square. We're using five of them, which
makes a total of 3 metres. That means we have to
cut 100 millimetres off our last row of tiles. After you've dug down,
spread out the base course. The base course
needs to have a fall of 10 to 15
millimetres per meter away from the house to
allow water to run off. Next, use a plate compacter
to pack the base course down. Using a compacter
is very important because it gives you
a solid base which keeps the pavers from moving. Now here's a quick tip. Lay down a couple of
lengths of PVC pipe. This will give you
something to level across and will give you a guide for
the correct depth of bedding sand. Spread the bedding sand
evenly across the area. Then, use a screed
to level it off. When you're done leveling,
pull out the PVC pipe. Now, we've put a string
line down parallel with the outside
edge of the house. We're going to use this as a
guide to lay our first paver. I'm laying these pavers
hard up against each other. I'm just going to use our rubber
hammer to tap our tiles down nice and flush with each other. We're now ready
to cut our paver. I've clamped a piece
of timber to it, so we can use that as a guide to
get ourselves a nice clean cut. And with this paver cutter,
I've got water and electricity on the same machine. So make sure you have
your RCD connected to it. Now, that was our last paver. We're now ready for haunching. Haunching is a concrete edge
we lay around our pavers to keep them locked in place. The first thing we need to is
dig a trench around the edge. Next, mix up some concrete. Next, place the
concrete in the trench. I'm going to use a trowel
to make a 45 degree angle. This will be perfect for
any water to run off. Now that our
haunching is dry, it's time to throw in our pave-set. We're going to sprinkle this
across the top of our pavers, and then we're going
to brush it in. This is going to help
lock them all together. Make sure you brush diagonally
so the pave-set gets into the grooves. Make sure all the
pave-set is removed from the surface of the pavers
before washing down with a hose or it will harden and
set on top of the pavers. What you've got to
do is let it dry and you've got yourself
a new outdoor paved area. Easy As. If you're thinking
of doing some paving, shoot down and talk
to someone at Mitre 10 and check out the Easy As stand.