How to build a paver patio base
Nobody’s patio fails because they chose the wrong paver. It fails because the base under it was too thin, badly compacted, or built on ground that holds water. In this climate the base is most of the job — and it’s the part that has to survive twenty freeze-thaw cycles a year.
The short version
- Base: 6″ of compacted 20mm road crush for a patio. Go to 8–10″ for a driveway.
- Bedding: exactly 1″ of bedding sand, screeded. Never thicker — thick sand ruts.
- Compact in 2″ lifts. Every time.
- Edge restraint is structural, not decorative. Without it the field spreads and the joints open.
- Polymeric sand in the joints, then activate with water per the bag.
- Coverage: a yard of road crush covers 54 sq ft at 6″.
Call the yard
The base materials on this page can all be ordered online. Pavers, slabs and hardscape products are stocked at the yard but aren’t listed on the site — so for those, call us on 780 910 8882 or come by and see them. It’s the better way to buy them anyway: colour and texture don’t photograph honestly, and you’ll want to see a paver dry and wet before committing a patio to it. Tell us your square footage when you call and we’ll work out the base quantities at the same time.
Materials
Tools: plate compactor (rental) · screed rails and a straight board · rubber mallet · string line and level · masonry saw or splitter for cuts
Depth & coverage
A 12 × 16 ft patio is 192 sq ft — about 3.5 yards of road crush and 0.6 yards of bedding sand.
Steps
1 · Mark the area and add working room
Lay out the patio, then dig 6–8″ wider on every side. The edge restraint needs base underneath it — a restraint spiked into soil will move.
2 · Call before you dig
Alberta One-Call, every time.
3 · Excavate to full depth
Roughly 9″ below finished level for a patio: 6″ base, 1″ sand, plus paver thickness. Measure from the finished height you want, not from the current ground.
4 · Set the fall
2% away from the house — about ¼″ per foot. Build it into the subgrade now and every layer above inherits it. A flat patio ponds, and in winter that’s an ice rink against your back door.
5 · Compact the subgrade
Before any material goes in.
6 · Lay fabric on clay
Keeps base and subgrade from mixing. On Edmonton-area clay it materially extends the life of the base.
7 · Build the base in 2″ lifts
Road crush, spread 2″ at a time, compacted after each lift, lightly dampened. Three lifts for a 6″ patio base. This is the single most important step on the page — a 6″ base compacted once is not a 6″ base, it’s 6″ of loose gravel with a firm crust.
8 · Screed exactly 1″ of bedding sand
Set two screed rails at the right height, fill between them with bedding sand, and pull a straight board across. Do not compact the bedding sand, and do not use it to fix an uneven base. More than 1″ and the pavers will rut under load.
9 · Lay the pavers
Start from a fixed straight edge and work outward, keeping the pattern tight. Don’t walk on the screeded sand — work from the laid pavers.
10 · Cut the perimeter
Measure and cut with a masonry saw or splitter.
11 · Fit the edge restraint
Around the whole perimeter, spiked through into the compacted base. This is what holds the field together. Skip it and the outer courses drift within a couple of seasons.
12 · Sweep in polymeric sand and activate
Sweep into every joint, vibrate the field with the compactor on a protective pad so the sand settles, top up, sweep the surface completely clean, then water exactly as the bag says. Polymeric sand left on the paver faces sets there and it’s very difficult to remove.
Building a patio base in the Edmonton area
Depth exists to beat frost, not weight. A patio carries almost nothing. The base is deep because the ground beneath it moves through the winter, and a properly compacted granular base spreads and absorbs that movement instead of transmitting it to the surface as a hump.
- Drainage is the other half of frost protection. Water in the base is what makes frost heave possible. Fall, free-draining base and fabric over clay are all doing the same job.
- Some seasonal movement is normal. A well-built patio in this climate can lift very slightly through deep winter and settle back in spring. Movement that doesn’t come back is a base problem.
- Build window. Once frost is out — typically late April — through freeze-up. Polymeric sand in particular needs above-freezing temperatures and a dry spell to cure; check the bag, and don’t try to activate it late in the season with rain forecast.
Common mistakes
- Base too thin. 3–4″ is a path base, not a patio base. 6″ compacted is the number.
- Not compacting in lifts. The most common cause of a wavy patio.
- Thick bedding sand to level a bad base. The classic shortcut, and it always ruts. Fix the base.
- Compacting the bedding sand. It’s a setting layer. Screed it and leave it.
- No edge restraint. The field spreads, joints open, sand washes out.
- Building flat. Ponding, staining, ice.
- Rushing the polymeric sand. Not sweeping the faces clean, or over-watering, ruins the finish.
- Base only under the pavers. The restraint needs base under it too — hence the extra 6–8″.
What it costs
Priced by material and volume — calculate each base layer before ordering.Base materials are a modest fraction of a paver project and the worst possible place to economise. Get your square footage into the material calculator or call the yard with the dimensions.
FAQ
Compacted crushed gravel — here that's 20mm road crush, 40% fractured rock and 60% sand. The fractured faces interlock under compaction to form a solid layer.
6″ compacted for a patio or walkway, 8–10″ for a driveway. Plus 1″ of bedding sand above it.
No. Round stone can't interlock, so it never compacts into a structural layer. Pea gravel is a surface material — it makes a good loose patio in its own right, over the same compacted base.
Exactly 1″, screeded level. One yard covers 324 sq ft at that depth.
Yes. It's structural. Without it the outer pavers move outward, the joints open and the sand washes out.
It fills the joints and hardens when activated with water, locking the pavers together and resisting weeds and washout. Ordinary sand washes out.
Yes — pavers and hardscape products are stocked at the yard, though they aren't listed online. Call 780 910 8882 or come and look at them; colour and texture are worth seeing in person. Everything under them — road crush, bedding sand, polymeric sand and edge restraint — you can order from the site.
Order the materials
Tell us your square footage and we’ll work out the base, the bedding sand and the jointing together — and talk pavers while we’re at it. Delivered across Edmonton metro inside 24 hours.
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