How to repair paving

Concrete is very durable, but you may find yourself in a situation where you need to repair some of your paving. There are many factors which might cause damage to a certain area of your paving or even a paving slab such as:

Too much space between pavers
Not compacting the sand base
Ignoring the edges
Poor draining
Not enough sand

This can cause pavers to sink due to heavy use or ground movements and lead to rainwater collecting puddles in your sunken paving slabs.

Follow on below to find out how you can best repair paving which has been damaged and keep them your paving clean.

How to repair paving slabs

Sunk or damaged paving slabs are easy to repair, you can simply lift these to either replace or re-lay it.

The process:

Before starting out, make sure you’re wearing safety wear and ask for help with lifting and laying if handling larger paving slabs.

Use a plugging chisel and club hammer, chip out the pointing around the slab
Lift the damaged slab using a spade.Top tip – use a spare bit of timber to protect the slabs around the damaged one when lifting
Use a wooden handle such as a broom and place under the slab to carefully roll out the slab
Break and remove the old mortar with a chisel and hammer
Once the mortar has been removed, replace new mortar by using four parts of sand with one part of cement, then lay in the new slab and secure into place with a hammer, whilst filling the joints with dry mortar
If you have sand filling, you can use timber to level it and add more if required

Lawsons expert advice:

When replacing damaged slabs, you might find using a brand-new paving slab might not 100% match your existing paving, for example there may be some colour difference between the existing and the new. If you’re replacing an old slab, we recommend you can take a slab from another area on your patio (perhaps closer to the wall) and use this to replace the damaged one. You can then fit the new mismatched slab in the patio area closer to the wall and avoid it from standing out.

How to clean your paving

You may also find that cleaning your paving will help its endurance and help make your garden or driveway area look as beautiful as ever. Here’s how you can quickly clean your paving:

Start with a clean-up: move any plants and furniture; grab a broom and brush away any dead leaves and dirt
Grab a weeding wire broom and remove any excess weed and dirt in between the gaps of the pavers
Choose a patio cleaner. We recommend you wear gloves and always read patio cleaner labels for instructions
Using a broom, scrub the patio cleaner on your paving and leave it to work. You can grab yourself a coffee while you wait
Use a pressure washer and engage spray mode to firstly test on a corner slab
Once you’ve tested a corner slab and all is safe, continue washing the rest of your pavers. Top tip – wash across joints, never up and down!!!
Use a sealer to protect the stone
Once dry, use a pointing trowel to fill the gaps with Kiln dried paving sand.Top tip - make sure you brush diagonally over joints