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- [Cameraman] This right here is called a paver.
Leslie made the decision to ditch our concrete
and go with some pavers.
- Normally, driveways are concrete.
They're fine.
They're great.
The thing I don't like about it is you see
all the tire marks.
It looks worn after a while and there's cracks.
With pavers, you don't get any of that.
And it's just like architecturally adds more texture
because we don't have very much going on
on the actual home itself.
It's smooth, it's stucco, and so this gives it
a little bit of texture, and a little bit
more interesting.
So, I love it.
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- So yeah, we went back and forth a few times
on whether we need to get pavers or not.
They definitely are much more beautiful
than just doing concrete.
But the problem was, it was like five times
more than concrete.
And for us, we're looking at it going,
I just don't know that we can justify that.
I didn't even know pavers existed before this moment.
I think I'll be fine with concrete.
But then a few things happened.
One, from the time that we actually got the bid on our home
to the time now, six months later, when we're
making the decision on whether to put concrete in,
the price of concrete has gone up
quite a bit and then also, rather than using
the one place in town that we were looking at before,
our landscapers, Land Works, just got into doing pavers
and they do it for less than what the other bid is
that we got.
Once we got the bid from our landscape company,
Land Works, and then we also looked at the price of concrete
and how much it was going to be, it sounded
like the thing to do.
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- So happy (clapping).
- [Cameraman] So happy.
- It really is much better than I even thought
it was going to be.
It's so nice.
I'm really glad we did it.
- [Cameraman] So this is it.
These guys have been here all day today
putting down the pavers and you can see it,
we're doing gray and we're also doing,
what's that pattern called?
- Herringbone.
- [Cameraman] Herringbone!
So we've got herringbone on the driveway.
Herringbone in the master bathroom with the marble
and herringbone with the wood floors inside of the house.
- Yes!
- [Cameraman] They still haven't done the full
drive up right here.
That's why we can't pull the Tesla up on it.
But then you can look and see all of this right here
has the pavers on it and it's gonna go all the way
back to the RV garage.
And these guys are out here just hustling it out.
This is Matt from Land Works.
He's our landscaper that's doing our pool
in the backyard, all of our landscaping,
and now pavers.
Walk we through the process here,
'cause I'm seeing guys like, with shovels,
with sand with--
They're here a couple of days ago with gravel.
Like what is it, how do you actually do this?
- The first thing they have to do is create
what's called a sub-grade.
That requires them to come in and pull out
about a foot of the existing soil.
That was the first day was getting all the mud out.
Then they bring in a compactible material
that is the sub-grade.
In this case it was road base.
- [Cameraman] Yeah, it looked like asphalt, kind of.
- Yep, it was kind of chewed up asphalt.
In this case, it was lava.
Chewed up lava.
That's called road base and that compacts really well.
That's the sub-grade and usually they put up
four to five inches of sub-grade,
compacted sub-grade in.
And then they get that pretty level,
but not exact and then they bring in sand
on top of the road base.
I don't know if you saw before they put the pavers down
but that's the finished sand grade.
- [Cameraman] Okay.
- And that's what the pavers go directly on.
So, the sand gets screeded.
If you see the pipes that they put in the sand,
they use that as kind of a guideline
and they screed the sand--
- [Cameraman] Oh, so that pipe like right there?
- Uh-huh, it's half buried and half out of the sand.
They use those pipes running parallel
to screed the sand out.
So it's finished out nice and even.
Then, if you notice, they never step on the sand after that.
Once it's screeded, everybody's, that's like
the cardinal sin for--
(Cameraman laughing)
the new guy is to walk on the screeded sand.
- Since I've been here in about an hour,
I've probably stepped on their sand three times.
They're probably like I hate that guy.
Those homeowners, what do they think they're doing.
Stepping on my screeded sand.
- They'll get the patten all laid out and then
they'll come back and cut the edges
and put the borders in around all the perimeter.
This border will look like this when it's all done.
We'll have two--
- [Cameraman] Oh!
- Two rows of that paver running around
all the perimeter.
- [Cameraman] Do they need to put like
any sand down in it or anything?
- Yeah, that's a good question.
So after that's all cut and the border's in,
they'll cement the edges to keep everything in place.
- [Cameraman] Oh, that keeps it in.
- And then they'll put sand over the whole driveway
and compact, run the compactor over the pavers
and that causes the sand to work down in all the joints
and tightens everything up so it doesn't move.
- What happens at this stage, if all the sudden
it just comes pouring rain?
Is it gonna mess up the pavers where
they're working on right now?
- No, so the good thing is with that compacted sub-grade,
that road base, it's hard as concrete.
So, the water can go ahead and fall,
it will filter through the pavers,
filter though the sand, it'll hit that road base,
and the whole driveway, the sub-grade is graded
to drain out to that edge.
So that water will just run underneath the pavers,
through the sand and won't mess anything up at this point.
- Couple of things that sold me on this also,
is that when you have concrete you can get those
giant cracks that go all the way acrossed it
that look really annoying.
And you have to replace the entire slab.
Well with this, you're not gonna get the big cracks
and if you do break one of the pavers,
you pull it out and you put a new one in.
And they're super cheap.
They're like a dollar a paver or something like that.
Another thing is, you guys know that I sold one of my Teslas
and bought a Honda Accord.
Well something really that bothered me is the other day
I went in my garage and there's a giant oil puddle
on the floor in my garage.
And I'm like, "What is this?
"My electric car never does this to my garage.
"What is this oil all over the place?"
And we're renting that house so it's gonna be a pain
to try to get that out.
Well, with pavers, one of your family members is in town
for Thanksgiving or Christmas and their car
just decides to take a leak over all your driveway,
you could replace some of those pavers.
In some cases, you could actually just pick 'em up
and flip 'em and put 'em back down
and it works that way.
Or you just get rid of it and put another one in.
The replacement side of it is huge.
And then the other thing for our house,
like, you see our house.
It's this beautiful white house,
not the White House, but it's like a white house
and we have this white wall that's behind us too
for the landscape which we really liked.
Our whole neighborhood has this.
That was one of the reasons why we wanted to buy this house.
But, how nice to have the black tiles on the roof
for the contrast and then you've got the black pavers
that are just on the ground right here.
That contrasting in color looks really, really good.
Pavers are pretty awesome if you can have the money
to spend, extra, and you find somebody that's good,
like Land Works that can do the work really, really well
and doesn't charge you five to 10 times
what the concrete would be.
It can be something that really can add
to the value of your home over the long-term.
Or just the satisfaction of being able to see
what your driveway looks like and add
to the exterior beauty of your house.
I never thought that I would ever make a video
on something like pavers but once I saw them
doing the work on it, I had to show you
'cause I am blown away.
This is all been put down in less than a day.
Just this process.
And so, they're gonna be done pretty quickly.
I mean, I know they had prep work and stuff to do
for a few days, but this is kind of unreal.
So let me know what you guys think.
Do you like the pavers?
Was it a good decision?
Would you do that at your house?
Do you have pavers at your house?
I'm pretty happy about it.
And we still haven't even finished the whole driveway
and we're doing the walkway going up to our house.
So that's it.
This is house update, what 13, 14?
I don't even know where we're at right now.
But, we're getting closer.
We are two months away from finishing this house.
And we have pavers.
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