How to Install Pavers: Base Depth, Bedding Sand, Edging and Compaction

A paver patio, walkway or driveway is only as good as what is under it, so this guide on how to install pavers spends most of its time below the surface. The short version: dig out the full depth of the build, put down 4 to 6 inches of compacted crushed base for a patio or walkway and 8 to 12 inches for a driveway, screed a 1 inch bed of coarse sand, lay the pavers tight to string lines, lock the edges with restraint, run a plate compactor over the surface, and sweep polymeric sand into the joints. Nearly every failed paver installation we see in California skipped one of those steps, usually the base depth or the edging. This guide walks through each layer in order, with the depths, the materials and the California soil conditions that change the numbers. Browse pavers by style and thickness first so you know what you are building with.

Plan the build by what will sit on it

Foot traffic and vehicle traffic need different bases, and the base is the part you cannot fix later without lifting everything.

Use	Compacted base	Bedding sand	Paver thickness	Total dig depth
Walkway or garden path	4 inches	1 inch	2 3/8 inches (60 mm)	about 7 1/2 inches
Patio	4 to 6 inches	1 inch	2 3/8 inches (60 mm)	7 1/2 to 9 1/2 inches
Driveway, cars only	8 inches	1 inch	3 1/8 inches (80 mm)	about 12 inches
Driveway, trucks or RV	10 to 12 inches	1 inch	3 1/8 inches (80 mm)	14 to 16 inches

Those are the depths for a well-draining soil. On the heavy clay found across much of the Central Valley and inland Southern California, add 2 inches of base and lay a woven geotextile fabric on the subgrade before the first lift, so the base cannot pump down into the clay when it is wet. Sandy coastal soils drain well but do not hold an edge, so restraint matters more there. In the high desert, caliche or hardpan close to the surface is actually a strong subgrade; you may hit it before you reach full depth, and you can build on it once it is level.

How deep to dig for pavers

Add up the layers from the table and dig to that depth below the finished surface you want. The finished paver surface should sit about 1/4 inch above the surrounding grade so water runs off it rather than onto it, and it needs a fall of about 1/8 inch per foot (1 to 2 percent) away from the house or any wall. Set that slope in the subgrade now, because every layer above it follows the same plane.

• Mark the area with paint or string, then add 6 inches on every open side. The base has to extend past the pavers so the edge restraint has something solid to sit on.
• Dig the full depth, not just to the paver thickness. Remove all topsoil, roots and organic material; they decompose and settle.
• Compact the subgrade with a plate compactor before any base goes in. Soft spots show up now, while they are cheap to fix with more base.
• Lay fabric on clay. Woven geotextile between the soil and the base keeps the two from mixing and is the single best insurance against a patio that heaves after the first wet winter.

The paver base: crushed rock, compacted in lifts

The paver base is crushed, angular rock with fines that lock together under compaction. In California that is Class II road base, the same 3/4 inch minus aggregate the highway department specifies. Do not substitute pea gravel, river rock or plain sand: round stone never locks up, and a base that rolls under load is a base that sinks. If you want to compare the options, best gravel for a driveway covers what road base is and why it works.

• Place it in lifts of 2 to 3 inches. A plate compactor only compacts the top few inches, so a 6 inch base goes in as two or three passes, each compacted before the next.
• Add water. Road base compacts best slightly damp; dust flying off the plate means it is too dry, water pooling means too wet.
• Check the slope every lift with a straightedge and a level, keeping the 1/8 inch per foot fall.
• Finish 1 inch below the bottom of the sand bed, and rake it smooth; humps and hollows here will telegraph through the sand.

Rent a plate compactor for the day. A hand tamper is fine for a 30 square foot path; it is not enough for a patio and it is nowhere near enough for a driveway.

The bedding sand: one inch, screeded, never compacted

The bedding course is a 1 inch layer of coarse, sharp sand that the pavers seat into. Use paver bedding sand or a washed concrete sand; both are angular and drain. Do not use fine play sand, masonry sand or stone dust for bedding. Fine sand holds water, and stone dust turns to slurry and pumps up through the joints.

• Lay two lengths of 1 inch pipe or bar on the base as screed rails, spread the sand between them, and pull a straight board across the rails to level it.
• Pull the rails, fill the grooves, and do not walk on the screeded sand or compact it. The plate compactor at the end will settle the pavers into it.
• Screed only as much as you can pave that day. Rain or foot traffic ruins a screeded bed.

Our guides on types of sand for landscaping and how much sand do I need cover the difference between bedding sand and joint sand, which are not interchangeable.

Laying the pavers

• Start from a fixed edge, usually the house or a straight string line at a 90 degree corner, and work outward so cuts land at the far edges.
• Set string lines every few courses. Patterns drift, and a 1/8 inch error per row becomes an inch in eight rows.
• Place, do not slide. Set each paver straight down onto the sand and leave the joint gap the paver's spacer bars give you, usually about 1/8 inch. Sliding pavers pushes sand into the joints and leaves them uneven.
• Mix pallets. Pull from three or four pallets at once so color variation spreads through the whole surface instead of showing up as bands.
• Cut with a wet saw or a diamond blade on an angle grinder. Keep cut pieces at least a third of a full paver; slivers at the edge crack and kick out.

Shop pavers

There are more than 50 pavers in the full collection, from 60 mm patio pavers to 80 mm driveway pavers and large-format porcelain.

Edge restraint: install it before you sand the joints

Pavers stay tight only because something stops the outside course from creeping. Without restraint the edges spread within a season, the joints open, and the whole field loosens. Options, best first:

• Steel edging such as Border King steel edging, spiked into the compacted base every 12 to 18 inches, is the cleanest for curves and straight runs alike.
• A concrete curb or footing poured against the outside course, hidden below grade.
• Plastic paver restraint with 10 inch spikes into the base, the common contractor choice; use edging stakes at every joint on curves.

Whatever you use, it sits on the compacted base, not on the sand, which is why the base extends 6 inches past the pavers. Our landscape edging guide compares the materials in more detail.

Compaction and joint sand

• Sweep the surface clean, then run the plate compactor over the pavers with a rubber pad or a sheet of plywood under it so the faces do not chip. Two or three passes in different directions seat the pavers into the bedding sand.
• Sweep in joint sand. Polymeric sand is the standard: it hardens with water, resists weeds and ants, and stays put in the wind. Sweep it diagonally across the joints until they are full to the chamfer, then compact again to settle it and top up.
• Blow off the surface completely before wetting. Any polymeric sand left on the paver faces will set there as a haze.
• Mist, do not flood. Wet the joints in light passes until the sand is saturated, without washing it out, and keep the surface dry for 24 hours afterward.

Shop the layers underneath

Drainage: where the water goes decides how long it lasts

Water is what moves a paver surface, so plan its exit before the first shovel. The 1/8 inch per foot fall handles rain on the surface. Water that gets into the base has to leave too: on well-draining soil it simply percolates, but on clay a base that stays wet loses strength, which is why the fabric and the extra 2 inches matter there. Where a patio sits against a house on clay, a shallow trench of drain rock with a perforated pipe along the low edge keeps the base dry. If runoff is the whole point, look at permeable pavers, which are set on an open-graded stone base with no fines so rain soaks straight through. Our guide on landscape rock for drainage covers the trench detail.

Driveway pavers: what changes

• Base depth doubles: 8 inches for cars, 10 to 12 for trucks, RVs or a boat trailer, always on fabric if the soil is clay.
• Use 80 mm (3 1/8 inch) pavers, not the 60 mm patio thickness, and choose an interlocking shape or a herringbone pattern. Herringbone spreads wheel loads across the most joints and is the pattern that does not rut.
• Compact harder. A reversible plate compactor, or several more passes with a standard one, and compaction of every lift, not every other lift.
• Restraint on every edge, including where the driveway meets the street apron and the garage slab.

How much material a paver project needs

A 12 by 15 foot patio, 180 square feet, on 5 inches of base:

• Pavers: 180 square feet plus 5 to 10 percent for cuts, so about 195 square feet. Pavers are sold by the pallet or the square foot; check the coverage per pallet on the product page.
• Base: the footprint plus a 6 inch margin on the open sides is roughly 13 by 16 feet, at 5 inches deep, which is about 3.2 cubic yards, or around 4.5 tons of road base. Order 10 percent extra for compaction.
• Bedding sand: 180 square feet at 1 inch is 0.55 cubic yards, or a little under a ton.
• Polymeric sand: one 50 pound bag fills the joints of roughly 60 to 100 square feet of standard pavers, so 2 to 3 bags. Wide-joint or cobble pavers use more.

The landscape rock calculator converts your own dimensions to cubic yards and tons for the base and sand, and cubic yards vs tons explains the conversion these layers are sold in.

What paver installation costs, and where the money goes

Paver installation cost is mostly labor and equipment. Contractor quotes for paver patios and driveways are built from the excavation, the hauling, the compactor rental and the cutting. The pavers themselves are typically less than half of an installed price, and the base, sand and edging together are a small fraction of it. That is why a DIY installation saves so much on a patio, and why it saves proportionally less on a driveway, where the excavation depth, the truckloads of base and the compaction effort are the bulk of the work. If you are pricing the material side, the product pages show pallet and per-ton prices, and a quote request gets you delivered pricing for the base and sand tonnage together.

Two things rarely worth saving on: the compactor rental and the base depth. Both are cheap next to lifting and relaying a patio.

Frequently asked questions

How deep should the base be for pavers?

4 to 6 inches of compacted crushed base for a patio or walkway and 8 to 12 inches for a driveway, plus 1 inch of bedding sand and the paver thickness. Add 2 inches on heavy clay and lay geotextile fabric under the base.

How deep do you dig for pavers?

Add the base depth, 1 inch of bedding sand and the paver thickness. A patio with 60 mm pavers on 4 inches of base is about 7 1/2 inches; a driveway with 80 mm pavers on 8 inches of base is about 12 inches.

What is the best base material for pavers?

Crushed, angular rock with fines, sold in California as Class II road base (3/4 inch minus). It locks together under compaction. Pea gravel, river rock and plain sand do not lock up and should not be used as a base.

What sand goes under pavers?

A 1 inch screeded bed of coarse, angular sand: paver bedding sand or washed concrete sand. Do not use play sand, masonry sand or stone dust for the bedding layer. Polymeric sand is for the joints only, not the bed.

Do you compact the sand before laying pavers?

No. Compact the subgrade and every lift of the base, then screed the bedding sand and leave it loose. The plate compactor pass over the finished pavers settles them into the sand.

Do pavers need edging?

Yes, on every side that is not held by a wall or slab. Without edge restraint the outside course creeps, joints open and the field loosens within a season. Steel edging, a concrete edge or spiked plastic restraint all work, set on the compacted base.

How much slope do pavers need?

About 1/8 inch per foot, or 1 to 2 percent, falling away from the house and any walls. Set the slope in the subgrade so every layer above follows it.

What thickness of paver for a driveway?

80 mm (3 1/8 inch) pavers in an interlocking shape or a herringbone pattern, on 8 to 12 inches of compacted base. The 60 mm pavers used for patios are too thin for vehicle loads.

How long before you can walk or drive on new pavers?

You can walk on a patio as soon as the joint sand is set, about 24 hours after wetting polymeric sand. Keep vehicles off a driveway for 24 to 48 hours so the joint sand cures fully.

Get the materials

Choose your pavers, then order the layers underneath in one delivery: Class II road base, paver bedding sand, polymeric sand and edge restraint. Size the base and sand with the landscape rock calculator, and for pallet quantities or long-distance delivery, request a quote. Still deciding between pavers and natural stone? Flagstone vs pavers weighs the two, and how to build a flagstone patio covers the stone version of this build.