Hi, I’m mark with the Perfect Paver Company, back with this week’s frequently asked question. Why should you seal your travertine pavers?

What’s Happening?

Trust me you’re not alone if you have travertine pavers, you had them installed, they were beautiful and just a few months after, you see mold, dirt, and maybe even vegetation growing up everywhere. It’s so frustrating because you made the investment in your travertine pavers because it was supposed to look better and now it’s actually making your pool deck or your outdoor space not look as good. So the question all the time that we get is, “why should I seal my travertine pavers?” and that’s a great question.

First Reason

There’s a couple of reasons, the first reason that we suggest you seal your travertine pavers is because travertine is extremely porous. There are a lot of holes, capillaries pores, and those types of things in the travertine and those holes can fill up with moisture and water and stay damp, creating the perfect conditions for things like mold and algae to not only grow and germinate,  but thrive and it kind of takes over. You have this beautiful pool deck made of travertine and the next thing you know, you have all this black mold and it’s just dingy and dull.

So, by sealing travertine with the proper sealer, a nice penetrating version of sealer, it’s going to minimize water’s ability to soak into that stone and therefore the stone is going to stay dry under the sealer and it’s gonna make it harder for things like mold, algae, and mildew and those types of things to grow.

Now, just sealing it by itself won’t completely eliminate the problem, but the other cool thing that it’s going to do is it’s gonna make it easier for you to also keep it clean, get that organic material off the surface of the stone. By getting that organic material off, those microscopic spores of mold and algae that’s trying to germinate won’t have any food to be able to derive.

Second Reason

So, the other reason why we suggest sealing your travertine pavers, especially in a Florida climate, is if you’re around a pool deck that’s a salt water pool. If you’re near the water, there’s a lot of salt in the air and travertine is actually a form of limestone. Limestone is very sensitive to salt.

What We Do To Solve The Problem

So we utilize a sealer that acts as a salt barrier that prevents salts ability to deteriorate the stone or deteriorate that limestone. It will actually eat it if it’s left unprotected, so seal your travertine because it makes it easier to maintain it, it can make it look better depending on which style of sealer that you go with, and it’ll help protect it against deterioration from salt.

Hope that answers all your questions about why you should seal travertine pavers and if you would, leave me a comment below and let me know what you’d like me to answer in next week’s frequently asked question.

Thanks again, Mark with Perfect Paver Company. Hope you have a great day.

Hi, I’m Mark with The Perfect Paver Company, here to answer this week’s question of the week, why do some pavers turn white after being sealed?

So there are two types of sealers. There are breathable sealers and there are non-breathable sealers.

Breathable sealers allow ground moisture to perculate up through the paver and back down through the paver without trapping that process from happening. Non-breathable sealers do the opposite.

So, when you have a non-breathable sealer, you’re essentially trapping ground moisture underneath the sealer and you can develop things like hydrostatic pressure which basically builds up a pressure strong enough to start to lift the coating from the paver and then that space inbetween the paver and the coating fills up with moisture and you basically see condensation and that gives off that white appearance. So, it’s really important to seal your pavers with a breathable sealer.

So, the other reason why pavers can turn white after being sealed is not related to the sealer as much as it’s related to what’s called efflorescence. So, in pavers, there are natural salts. Primarily pavers made from concrete, there are natural salts. We refer to them as efflorescence. When ground moisture or when rain goes down into the paver, those natural salts in the paver stick to that moisture and then when it evaporates back up through the paver, it takes the efflorescence with it and it leaves it on the surface as the moisture evaporates away.

When you have sealers that are not breathable, it can trap that efflorescence in underneath of the sealer. Now, it’s still likely that if you’re experiencing efflorescence, you’re still going to see that regardless of whether or not you have a breathable or non-breathable sealer, but you’re going to see less of it when you have a breathable sealer.

In addition to that, when your pavers are installed over top of a concrete base, there’s nowhere for that water to go when the water drains down through the paver, and hits the concrete base. It kind of get stuck there. So, what happens is the natural salt stick to the moisture in the concrete base as well and it pulls that salt up through the paver and leaves a deposit on the surface.

So, if you have poor drainage, if you have pavers installed on concrete base and you’re seeing white on your pavers in those areas, it’s likely efflorescence and it’s being magnified by drainage issues.

So, I hope that answered your question as to why pavers can turn white when they’ve been sealed and by the way, if you have a question that you would like answered in a future question of the week, please comment below and I would be happy to do so. Thanks again and have a great day!

Hi, I’m Mark with the Perfect Paver Company here again with this week’s question of the week and this week, I’m gonna answer, what is polymer and why do your pavers need it?

So in between interlocking pavers is a joint and during installation that joint gets installed with sand. A product that came out on the market, and in about the last five to seven years is called polymeric sand. What that is, is a mixture of natural sand and polymers or plastic. They mix those together in the manufacturing process and when it’s installed in the joint and you activate it with water, it activates the polymers, the polymers bind to the sand and when it dries it cures into a hard grout like material.

So the purpose of installing the polymeric sand in the joint is to help keep the pavers locked together, but it also helps keep the joint filled with the material that stays locked in the place. Before polymeric sand, you would install just natural loose sand in the joint and over time as rain and frequent cleanings would happen, that loose sand would get washed out, causing a void and that void would fill up with organic material, dirt, and other unwanted things.

So polymeric sand goes in the joint during installation or during restoration when you’re cleaning the pavers up. It locks itself into place and makes it so that it can’t fill up with organic material like dirt and debris, and one of the benefits of it is because your pavers are now easier to maintain because the joints filled with locked sand, it’s more difficult for things like weeds and vegetation to grow on the joint because it doesn’t have that organic material in the joints. So that’s polymeric sand in a nutshell. I hope that answers your question and by the way if you guys would comment below with the question that you might have about pavers, I’ll be happy to answer that in an upcoming segment of frequently asked questions. Thanks and have a great day!

Hi I’m Mark with the Perfect Paver Company back again to answer today’s question of the week. How many coats of sealer do you apply?

So when it comes to sealing pavers more is not always better. I know that’s the case when you’re painting your house or painting walls inside of your house, you really want to get good coverage, not always the case with paver sealer. We utilize a penetrating sealer, which means that the sealer is going to soak down into the paver, and its goal is to coat the individual particles that make up the paver and not put a roof over top of the paver.

The more sealer that you apply to the paver, the more of a roof effect you’re going to get and the less breathable that paver is. So there’s a lot of ground moisture, water is underneath the paver, it needs to be able to evaporate up through the paver and move freely. If you have a roof over top of the pavers, you’re going to prevent that from being able to happen.

The other thing that can happen when you over apply sealer is, again back to the roof. You’re trapping in moisture, and it’s going to build up what’s called Hydrostatic Pressure, and it’s going to start pushing on that roof until eventually it pops loose and detaches from the surface of the paver.

So we’re really good at putting just enough sealer on our pavers not too much, not too little. A lot of times, there are companies who utilize a two part sealer and so the sealer actually comes to them and Part A, Part B when it arrives on the job site, the applicator will mix the Part A and Part B together and add water.

We actually have our sealer pre-mixed for consistency. So when we when we show up to the job, it’s the same product being applied every time. What happens with the Part A, Part B being mixed with water on the site, your first batch maybe has too much water, your second batch has not enough water. The other thing that’s going on is the first coat that they typically will put down is a heavily watered down version. So the purpose of that is to get that sealer is so deep down in the paver and then they come back over it with a second coat where they’re using a little bit less water.

At the end of the day, it’s the same amount of solids that’s being put on the paper. And that’s what’s important that you’re getting good protection of the paver, you’re coating the individual particles of the paver, it’s breathable, allowing the moisture to go up and down through the paver. You’re not trapping that in and it’s going to wear nice and consistently because you haven’t over applied sealer.

I hope that answers your question. We apply just enough sealer and rarely do we apply two coats, but in the event that we feel it is needed to get that great coverage on the particles, that’s what we do!

Hey, it’s Mark with the Perfect Paver Company. Today, I wanted to kick off our first question of the week talking about weeds.

That’s right, weeds, mold, any type of vegetation in your pavers, it’s never a good thing. So I wanted to just take a minute to explain why do you have weeds, what’s causing them, and what can be done to prevent them or minimize them.

It’s important to understand that weeds and vegetation happens because of site conditions. And there are a few different site conditions that can be taken into consideration that can prevent or cause weeds and mold and those types of things to grow and germinate.

Issue #1

The first one is going to be sun exposure. If you have an outdoor space that has a tremendous amount of shade, doesn’t get a lot of sun exposure, you’re going to be more prone to have things like mold and algae and those types of things grow. Also as a result of not having much sun exposure, you’re going to have a lot of shade, and things are gonna stay damp longer. Vegetation, weeds, all of those things require moisture to thrive, germinate, and grow. So the first condition is too much shade or not enough sun exposure.

Issue #2

The second component is adequate drainage. When an installer installs pavers, we suggest that you have a minimum of one quarter inch slope per foot of paver per foot of area of patio. So if you have a 10 foot wide patio it should slope two and a half inches. So when you don’t have that much slope, it decreases the ability for the water to channel off the surface, it should be channeling off the surface into a into a drain or off the edge of the patio into the landscape. When that’s not happening, the pavers retain the moisture of the sand, and the joints retains the moisture in the setting bed underneath of the pavers. Again, you’re creating the perfect conditions for weeds to germinate and grow.

Issue #3

The third condition is lack of maintenance. When pavers are installed, the installer will fill up the joints with a sand material. Over time that sand can settle, wash out, and that joint starts to fill up with organic material. Airborne dust, debris, mulch, leaf clippings, grass clippings, all of those things find their way into the joint, deposit into the joint and turn into compost. That creates the perfect conditions for weeds to germinate and algae and mold and those types of things to germinate and thrive.

Balance

So, there’s this three way scale, so to speak, between the adequate sun exposure between the adequate drainage and the adequate maintenance. What I mean by a three way scale is if you have less sun exposure, you’re going to require that your pavers have more drainage capabilities built in and more maintenance. If you have bad drainage, the drainage component comes down, and it’s going to require that you have more sun exposure and more maintenance.

What We Can Do

So a lot of people think when they contact us and they have their pavers sealed and the joints are hardened, that that solves all of their problems, and they’re not going to have weeds anymore. Now, the only component that sealing your pavers and the only sight condition that sealing your pavers will solve, is the maintenance component. It can make your pavers easier to maintain, but it’s not going to take the place of proper sun exposure and proper drainage. So when we come in, we’re going to thoroughly steam clean all of the pavers, we’re going to clean out all of that organic material between the joints. Then we’re going to install back a polymeric sand into the joint that gets hard to stabilize in place. So when you’re doing regular maintenance on the pavers, and you’re not washing out that sand, you’re preventing that the organic material from building building up. Once that’s done, if you have poor drainage and not enough sun exposure, you’re just going to need to do your maintenance more frequently. It’s the maintenance that you do on your pavers that prevents the weeds and the mold and the algae from growing, and not the hardening of the sand or the ceiling component by itself that’s capable of doing that.

So I hope that answers all of your questions as to why you have weeds and vegetation and mold and algae growing in and on your pavers, and what can be done to prevent those things. So again, I’m Mark with Perfect Paver Company. Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll see you next week!