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Installing paving stones in southern California will not be the same as installing paving stones in northern California. The difference in the installation process is simply because of the rainfall amounts and the native soil types. In northern California, the rainfall is much more than in southern California which will require a thicker base preparation. In southern California the standard base preparation for a typical residential paving stone installation is 4 inches. Usually a geo-textile fabric is not required since the native soils are generally hard with minimal clay. In northern California, where it rain’s much more, a typical driveway paving stone installation will require 6 to 8 inches of sub-base preparation.

There are some areas in southern California that have high clay contents, which expands and retracts as it gets wet and then dries. This causes swelling and instability beneath the paving stones. In these scenarios, it is important to excavate deeper and install more road base. It is also recommended to install a geo-textile fabric over the native soil, before laying the road base down. This will prevent the road base from getting mixed into softened clay when it saturated, reducing the potential of a sagging paving stone installation.

When you’ve completed your excavation, road base (typically a mixture of ¾” – gravel and dirt) will be installed and graded for drainage runoff. Road base should be compacted in 2 inches. The top of your base layer will be 3.5 or 4.5 inches below the final grade of the paving stones, depending on the paving stone thickness.

When your base is finished, you are ready to install your sand. The Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institution suggests using a plaster or washed masonry sand. Once this sand is screeded evenly to a thickness of approximately 1″ you are ready to snap lines and prepare to install the paving stones.

You must install an edge restraint in the areas of the border that do not abut a foundations or some sort of natural restraint. The edge restraint will hold your paving stone border in place and act as the picture frame that holds your pave stones together. There are plastic or metal edger’s that you can install at the edge of the paving stones that stake into the ground with 9 – 12 inch nails or stakes. What I’ve found to be the best edge restraint is to trench along the field stones the entire depth of the base, if you installed 4 inches of base and 1 inch of sand, you would trench a total of 5 inches adjacent to the field paving stones. Mix some concrete and fill the trench ½ full. Then install a piece of #3 rebar horizontally in the trench and fill in the rest of the trench with concrete. Lay your border stones into the wet concrete, tamp with a rubber mallet and allow it to set. The concrete edge restraint will hold your border stones down and will also act as a retaining wall for the sub-base material so it does not mix laterally with any native soils.

Finish up your paving stone installation by spreading a layer of angular, course sand over the paving stones. Use a vibrating compactor to vibrate the sand into the joints of the paving stones. This will take several passes with the plate compactor.