Have you ever walked on pavement in the rain? Perhaps, you were at one time or another forced to dodge puddles. You might have even had wet shoes or maybe wet socks. But, if you have ever walked on pavers over concrete, you would have noticed the difference.
Perhaps, you are asking yourself, what are pavers over concrete? Well, the pavers allow water to drain through the expanded joints, eliminating standing water and wet socks. Used with a porch, you do not need to lay out your socks and shoes over vents to dry them out anymore. This is one of the most basic benefits of a paver system.
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PERMEABLE PAVERS OVER CONCRETE
Permeable pavers or pavers over concrete are usually made of high quality standard concrete paving stones. The shape of the thin paver over concrete allows for larger gaps between the stones which in turn permits water to rapidly drain through the surface into a base material that is open graded. This base layer can accommodate a great amount of water.
A PAVER OVER CONCRETE DRIVEWAY
To help you better understand this subject, let us use this example. Assuming that you installed a 12” base layer of gravel, you could store approximately 4” of water in that base material. To translate for a 1000 square foot driveway, you could store close to 3000 gallons of water under your driveway. This benefits the environment by infiltrating water back into the ground and recharging aquifers for future generations to use.
COMMERCIAL PAVING SYSTEMS
You might have noticed brick pavers over concrete in large commercial parking lots or road ways. Often times, permeable paving systems are used in these large commercial settings to manage the storm water on a newly developed site in very large quantities. Pavers over a concrete driveway are a highly engineered system and affects overall watershed planning and infrastructure projects. This has also been the traditional use for permeable pavers. However, with new product developments, residential applications are becoming much simpler and more common.
THIS BRICK PAVERS OVER CONCRETE
Perhaps, you are wondering how to choose permeable over traditional unit paving systems or how to install thin brick pavers over concrete. Maybe you are wondering too about what to do with the water that accumulates.
WATER CONSERVATION & DRAINAGE
Rain water does not cost anything if you find ways to reuse it to your benefit. Believe it or not traditional paving and piping contribute to a high tax and utility bill. It costs to manager water. In fact, controlling water is a large expense to all municipalities and many of our traditional management techniques are getting old and will need to be completely overhauled.
HOW ABOUT SAVING YOURSELF SOME MONEY?
In some parts of the United States, there is even a storm water tax based on the amount of impervious surface on your property. Therefore, installing thin or permeable pavers over concrete will allow you to build a larger home to larger patio and still meet your local building ordinance.
BENEFITS OF STORING RAIN WATER
You are spending money managing something that is FREE to all. Now, how do you use the conserved water? Here are a few uses of rainwater after pavers over concrete porch installation.
- Drip Irrigation System – Rainwater passing through a permeable system can be pumped back out for drip irrigation systems. Harvesting the water allows you to use it for watering indoor house plants. You might have noticed that your lawn looks greener after a rain than after manual watering. This is because tap water is treated with chemicals that lawns don’t like. Above all, you still pay for the chemicals.
- Let Nature Clean Your Car – Another use of rainwater after you have installed patio pavers over concrete is for washing your black or dark colored vehicle, which prevents the appearance of water spots. When you wash your car with tap water, water spots will appear. However, using rainwater will eliminate a lot of water spots because there are no added chemicals in the water. Chemical-treated water will stick to the surface.
- Permeable Paver Benefits Abound! – Decorative water features like a bubbling rock or fountain can run using rainwater. However, this can only be possible if you install a permeable system.
- Flooding – If you live in a low lying area and experience flooding often, installing brick pavers over concrete might be your solution. There have been situations where some homeowners have always had a problem with water in their garage, which they might mitigate using this system and prevent flooding problems.
- $$$ & Water Conservation – It is nice that most of us have this luxury already, but if you have kids, you do know that they have to go to the bathroom often and flush the toilet. Not only does this waste water but, every time you flush a toilet, you are paying for it. Though, in some areas of North American municipalities, you are allowed a separate system for toilets and wash sinks, this does not happen everywhere to to building codes, but is gaining some traction in the construction industry. It is definitely worth looking into!
The above are just a couple of economic benefits on how you can reuse a free resource – rainwater. For many years, we have treated water as a nuisance. However, it is a critical resource to our future generations that is unfortunately dwindling. There is even a saying out there that “water is the next oil”. By installing pavers over concrete around your home, you are doing your part to preserve one of the main resources in the world that is critical to life on Earth, and if you happen to get something FREE out of it, that could be fantastic!
CALL NOW: (615) 266-6360