Here are a Few Tips For Building a Brick Walkway for Your Home Cheyenne WY

If you use bricks or pavers in order to build a walkway for your home it can give it a classy touch that you cannot get with asphalt or concrete. You can also get bricks in various colors to compliment any color scheme of your home. Installing a brick walkway is not very difficult and you do not need to hire a contractor to do it. You just need a few tools, a few tips, and a few bricks.

Here are some steps to installing a brick walkway

∗ First you have to outline where the walkway will be. You can use a garden hose or a string and wooden stakes. If you have any curves to the walkway it can make it more difficult if you have to cut the brick.

∗ Determine what type of pattern you want with your brick walkway.

∗ Calculate how many bricks that you will need. Always get a few extra bricks in case something happens and a few bricks break.

∗ Dig out the area of the walkway about 8 inches deep. You can use a straightedge shovel and even an edger in order to straighten the sides.

∗ After you have dug out the walkway go over it and remove any loose rocks or roots. (make sure you have fully removed the roots because if they come back they may push up a portion of your brick walkway.)

∗ Add around 4 inches of smaller aggregate gravel to the path and then tamp it down with a compactor that you rent.

∗ Put 1-inch pipes on either side of the walkway to make sure that they will be level. You can use a carpenter's level that is attached to a board to make sure it is level.

∗ Add around 2 inches of either masonry sand or stone dust to your walkway.

∗ Put a board across the walkway onto the set pipes and slide the board over the length of the walkway. This will level the underlying sand or dust. When the
base is level compact it.

∗ Place plastic brick borders around the edges of the walkway by using foot long galvanized nails and drive them into the ground. The borders will hold the bricks in place and keep the walkway from spreading out.

∗ Now you are ready to install the bricks. Install the bricks in the pattern that you already designed. Put the brinks on top of the compacted level base. Make sure you do not push the bricks down in the base, as they will not stay level. If you interlock each of the rows of the bricks the walkway will be more solid. Make sure to check that the adjacent rows of bricks are staggered by a half a brick in order for the seams to not be in line with each other.

∗ Take a broom and sweep either sand or stone dust into the joints. This is the final step so do not do this until all the bricks are laid down. Then run the compactor over all of the walkway.