The Ultimate Guide: Choosing the Paving Sand
Are you planning to install a paver to add to your home’s landscaping? To achieve long-lasting, aesthetically pleasing results, it’s crucial to choose the right sand and learn a few tricks of the trade!
Indeed, the sand you select can have a significant impact on the stability, durability and aesthetic appeal of your pavers. Groupe Bellemare sandpits enable us to produce and sell high-quality sand for many types of projects, including pavers!
The Importance of Sand in Pavers
Sand plays an essential role in paving, acting as a stabilizer and filler between pavers or blocks. It also provides support and distributes the weight of the pavers.
Its versatility and affordability make sand an essential component in paver construction, guaranteeing long-lasting, practical and attractive results.
What type of sand should I choose for pavers?
Here are three popular options to consider:
Concrete sand: Ideal for concrete paver installations, this sand offers excellent drainage and stability. Its grain size and angular shape facilitate interlocking, ensuring that pavers stay in place.
Masonry sand: Perfect for brick or stone pavers, masonry sand has a finer texture and helps create a smooth, level surface. It provides good compaction and is easy to work with.
Class A sand: This standard sand, sieved to a uniform grain size, is a versatile and affordable choice. It is often recommended as a base course for patios, sidewalks, slabs and pavers, as well as in landscaping.
Benefits of Using Quality Sand
By choosing quality sand from a trusted supplier like Groupe Bellemare, you benefit from the following advantages.
- Longevity: High-quality sand ensures the durability and longevity of your paving. It will withstand regular use (pedestrians and vehicles) and weather conditions.
- Easy to install: Well-graded quality sand facilitates levelling and compaction during installation.
- Weed and insect resistance: Good sand helps prevent the growth of weeds by limiting their access to nutrients and sunlight. It also dissuades insects from burrowing under your paving.
- Aesthetic Appeal: The colour and texture of the sand can greatly enhance the visual appeal of your paver. We encourage you to create a design to match your home’s style.
- Stable basis: Well-compacted sand forms a stable base for your pavers, minimizing displacement over time.
- Water drainage: Quality sand promotes good water drainage. This prevents the formation of puddles that can damage your paving stone.
Challenges of paving sand
While sand is an excellent choice for paving, there are a few challenges to keep in mind.
Sand movement: When a paver is located in a high-traffic area (pedestrians and/or vehicles) or exposed to the wind, sand particles can move or come loose over time. Regular maintenance, such as brushing the sand out of the joints, can reduce this problem.
Dust and erosion: Fine sand particles can become airborne or erode during heavy rainfall. Choosing sand with the right particle size can minimize these effects.
Sand quality: Not all suppliers produce high-quality sand. Make sure you buy sand from reliable sources.
What quantity and thickness of sand should you use for your pavers?
The quantity of sand required for your paving project depends on three main factors: the area to be paved, the type of sand and the desired thickness. Here’s how to do it.
- Measure the length and width of the area to be paved and multiply these measurements to calculate the total area in square feet.
- Determine the desired thickness of the sand layer. As a general rule, a layer of 1" to 1.5" is sufficient.
- Multiply the total area in square feet by the desired thickness to obtain the quantity of sand required.
- Contact your sand supplier or read the specifications of the sand you have chosen to determine the weight associated with your quantity.
You can also use our tonnage calculator on this page.
Why choose Groupe Bellemare for your paving sand?
Selecting a reputable and experienced sand supplier is crucial to receiving the best sand on the market for your pavers. Here’s why you can trust us!
- Customized delivery service: We offer a fast, reliable transport service so that you can collect your products from us or have them delivered directly to your worksite. What’s more, thanks to our fleet of high-performance spreading trucks, we also offer delivery and installation in a single step. Our trucks are capable of spreading material quickly and accurately, guaranteeing efficient installation.
- Several options: Groupe Bellemare offers a variety of sands (as well as gravel and specialty stones) specially designed for paving and many other residential and commercial projects. All products are available in bulk, for both residential and commercial volumes. Some sands and aggregates are also available in 30 kg bags.
- Quality control: Groupe Bellemare’s engineers and technicians follow strict quality control measures to ensure that all sands always meet the same high standards of quality and reliability.
Contact us for more information or to find out how to order sand for your projects!
