My new paver patio started sinking after the first big rain

I put in a small paver patio myself about three weeks ago, thinking I did everything right. I dug down six inches, put in three inches of gravel, tamped it, then added an inch of sand. It looked great until we got that heavy rain last Tuesday. The whole corner by the house sank almost two inches, and now the pavers are all wobbly. My neighbor walked over and said, 'Kid, you didn't compact the base in thin enough layers, did you?' He was right, I just dumped all the gravel in at once and tamped the top. I had to pull up all the pavers in that section and redo the base, adding and tamping the gravel just two inches at a time. It took me a whole extra weekend to fix it. Has anyone else had this happen and found a good way to check your base is solid before you lay the final sand?

3 comments

3 Comments

ruby_jones13d ago

Is it really that big of a deal though?

piper77913d ago

Honestly that's such a classic move, rushing the prep work. I see it everywhere, like when people paint over dirty walls without sanding and wonder why it peels. The base is everything, it's the part nobody sees but it has to be perfect. For checking, I just take a garden rake and drag it hard across the compacted gravel before the sand. If it digs in or leaves deep marks, you need more tamping. That sinkhole is just the foundation's way of telling you it wasn't ready.

sage_green13d ago

Yeah I used to think you could just eyeball it and call it good. That exact same sink happened to me and now I'm a total convert to the two-inch layer rule.