Patio and Paver Installation in Charleston, SC

About $18 a square foot is a fair starting point for pavers. Where you land depends mostly on the material: poured concrete is the cheapest at around $12 a square foot, concrete pavers are the middle ground, porcelain sits above those, and natural stone like travertine, bluestone or marble is the premium. We price the exact layout once the design is set.

There is no standard size, it depends on what you will use it for and what the space allows. 10 by 10 is the smallest we would recommend, which fits a table and chairs. If you want a fire pit you need more, because you have to be able to move around it and pull chairs back.

Poured concrete is the cheapest at about $12 a square foot, and a tabby or salt-void finish looks excellent, especially with a brick border. Concrete pavers are the middle ground and suit a modern, minimalist look. Porcelain pavers sit a step above those: cheaper than natural stone, strong, heat resistant and available in a wide range of looks. Natural stone is the luxury option, the best looking and the longest lasting. Pavers of any kind also have the advantage that individual pieces can be lifted and replaced, which cracked concrete cannot.

They are, and they are often the best value on the list. Porcelain is generally cheaper than natural stone, it is strong, it comes in a wide variety of looks including convincing stone and timber finishes, and it is heat resistant, which you notice on a patio in full sun. Like any paver, individual pieces can be lifted and replaced.

The best method is mortar-setting on a solid concrete base. That does not give the paver a crisp edge — it means a paver that already has one can be laid dead flat, every piece level with the next. Most pavers are made with a chamfered, rounded-off edge specifically because it hides the small height differences a quicker install leaves behind; square-edged stone set in mortar does not need that forgiveness. We also use a compacted ROC base with the pavers mortar-set or laid on sand or granite fines, or #57 stone in place of ROC, which leaves air gaps that help stop tree roots growing up into the patio. Geotextile fabric goes underneath where the site calls for it.

Settling and tree roots are the two biggest failures, and both come down to how the patio was built. Proper compaction and a root barrier where roots are a risk is what prevents them. There is no fixing it afterwards cheaply, so it has to be right the first time.

It depends on the product, so we follow the manufacturer's specification for the paver you choose rather than applying one rule to everything. Natural stone is a different case: travertine in particular is porous and hard to keep clean without a sealer.

We like Techo-Bloc, particularly the larger format sizes, and there are plenty of other good products worth exploring. The right choice depends on the look you are after and the budget.

Increasingly, yes. Lowcountry towns are getting stricter about how much impermeable surface a property can have, so permeable pavers are becoming a necessity rather than an upgrade. It is better to design around that than to find out late.

Most people go for random patterns, and diamond patterns are popular too. Borders matter more than the field pattern: they frame the patio and stop it reading as a slab dropped in the yard. We have run brick borders around the outside of a tabby concrete patio and through the middle of it, breaking one large area into sections.