hannah400•1mo agoMost Upvoted

My neighbor told me to skip the gravel under my patio pavers...

He said the sand base would be fine for our clay soil in Ohio, but after the first winter, everything shifted and cracked. I'm looking at redoing about 200 square feet now. Has anyone else had this happen with a sand-only base?

4 comments

4 Comments

spencer_owens581mo ago

Oh man, I feel your pain so much. My uncle tried to save money on his walkway with just sand over clay, and it was a total mess after one freeze. The water had nowhere to go, so it just pooled under the sand and turned everything into mud soup. Gravel isn't just for leveling, it's like a sponge that pulls water away from the sand and pavers. Now I'm looking at my own patio project and I'm not skipping that step, even if it costs more upfront. It's a brutal lesson to learn the hard way.

stone.lisa25d ago

Totally feel your pain here. My sister did the exact same thing with her patio in Michigan, thought she was saving a few hundred bucks by skipping the gravel. First winter came and her pavers looked like a puzzle someone dropped on the floor. The clay soil just holds onto every drop of water like a sponge and then when it freezes it expands and pushes everything around. Now she's redoing the whole thing with gravel and geotextile fabric underneath, and it's way more work than just doing it right the first time. The sand alone can't handle the water, especially with clay underneath, so you gotta have that gravel layer to let things drain.

betty_kelly91mo ago

Yeah, that's why you need the gravel for drainage.

murray.jana1mo ago

Notice how many problems in life just come down to needing a good base layer. It's true for plants, it's true for building a patio, and honestly it's true for trying to have a stable week. Skip that step and everything on top just gets messy and sinks. Makes me wonder what other things we're trying to fix without dealing with the drainage issue first.