Use Polymeric Sand To Block Weeds In The Paver Patio, step by step

Let us talk about crack sand. You know we enjoy to save a buck wherever we can. Sometimes to a fault. And as any scrimper knows, sometimes it can bite you in the a-dollar-sign-dollar-sign (a$$). Though I am not sure we ever expected that we’d wish we had splurged on “the fancy sand”…but that was the case after living with our wrapped up patio for a few weeks.

If you recall, we used some leftover paver sand to fill the cracks between the stones instead of spending the $95 that the stoneyard would’ve charged for a delivery of the polymeric stuff (which has some cement-like qualities to assist keep it in place and block weeds a little better).

At first the paver sand looked strong in those cracks…

… but after a few weeks and (more importantly) a few rains, I grew increasingly unsatisfied with my crack sanding job (yes, I simply quite maturely resisted the urge to write “the sand in my crack”). It had washed out in a bunch of places, leaving plenty of empty gaps and an inconsistent look that I was not glad with.

So, we bit the bullet, swallowed our pride, and picked up a bucket of polymeric sand at Lowe’s for about $30. It technically should have only been sufficient to cover about 1/3rd of the patio, but since the cracks still had some regular sand packed into the bottom of ’em, I knew it’d go further (not only did one bucket do the trick, we still have plenty leftover in case we ever need to redo it). So at least we did not end up spending the full $95 that we were originally quoted.

Applying the sand was tedious to say the least. Simply as the directions suggested, I used a ziploc bag with the pointer snipped off to pour the sand directly into the cracks… of which there were plenty. Did I mention it was tedious? And yes I channeled Duff from Ace of Cakes the whole time (minus the weird facial hair).

My initial application was way too heavy – which is not ideal because once this stuff gets wet it truly is cement-like. So you want to be sure you put the sand only where you want it to stay for the long haul (as in, not on the face of the pavers).

So section-by-section I swept my heavy-handed sand “icing” until it thinned out into something more subtle (the top half of this pic is done, and I hadn’t began on those bottom cracks).

Then in an extra credit bout of nerdiness, after all of the sand was poured and swept, I went over the whole patio with my electric leaf blower on its lowest setting to be sure I got rid of any excess on the surface of the stones. After that I broke out my hose and misted the whole area per the directions (being sure to get everything wet without going overboard and washing things out).

In retrospect I wish I had blown or swept out a smidge more sand before wetting things down so that the “seams” of sand between the pavers were a compact bit thinner. Guess I will add that to my Lessons Learned list. Right under “Use polymeric sand in the first place.” But it is truly not too bad. Kind of charming in that it-looks-like-it is-been-here-a-while-way (when the seams are free of sand it looks truly dorky-new to us, like too-white sneakers on the first day of school).

Even though we did save about $60 in the long run, I do wish we’d “splurged” for it during the initial patio laying process. It would’ve saved me plenty of time (it took about three passes to get the paver sand looking good during my first attempt, whereas the polymeric stuff took only one) and in the long run I am confident that the “fancy stuff” will do a much better job when it comes to blocking weeds, ant hills, and all that other unwanted stuff over the next few years.

Here is a shot of the pavers that I snapped yesterday, about a month after putting all the new sand down. We figured we should wait to post about it to see how it stood the test of time (and a few crazy thunderstorms). So far it is holding up as well as the day I did it. And yes, I am quite relieved about that. I do not know that I had another sand application in me if this one did not pan out.

Has anyone else learned their lesson the hard way? Or can you think of a time where you wish you had simply bucked up and done things right the first time? In short I am looking for you folks to make me feel less like I am the only one who makes these kind of mistakes.

Psst- Want to look back on the whole patio process from beginning to end? Here is the first post (about planning), the second post (about prepping the area), the third post (about unexpected budget breakage), the fourth post (about further prepping the area), the fifth post (about adding the gravel & sand along with the majority of the pavers), and the big we are at last done post (complete with a bucketload o’ pics).