Stamped concrete sure looks inviting. They have really done a lot with fake painted finishes. The salesman will tell you how much money you’re going to save with his product versus concrete pavers. Granted, stamped concrete is a few dollars less per square foot than paver stones. It is important to understand just how much that couple of bucks is going to cost you in the near future. You will have to shell out money for resealing every year. And Lord forbid that someone with a leaky engine parks in your driveway! Oil stains are almost impossible to remove from the painted on finishes. Then you have to worry about earthquake stress cracks and erosion over the long haul.
Not a sound investment for saving a little money per square foot.

Unlike a lot of things you can buy in today’s world, paver stones are not a ‘you seen one – you seen ‘em all’ kind of thing. Clay pavers have their uses, but they do not hold up under a lot of stress and certainly aren’t the right product for your driveway. It’s best to leave clay pavers alone here in California where the ground has a bad habit of shifting around without asking permission.

There are different levels of quality in concrete pavers for residential properties. Cheap pavers, like the ones you can buy at Home Depot or Lowe’s, are not going to hold up forever. Another issue with cheap paver stones is that they fall apart when the installer has to cut them. Installing these inferior grades of pavers in your driveway is very unwise. They will not withstand the weight of vehicles for long at all. To make matters worse on the standpoint of your real estate investment, no really professional contractor will install these inferior quality pavers for you. Remember that when you start shopping for a contractor to put in your driveway or patio.

In professional contractor grade concrete pavers, there are different grades of choices as well. Don’t try to cut costs on your paver installation by demanding to go with the least expensive pavers in your driveway. Paver stones are designed to address different uses according to the demands placed upon the material after it is installed on a property. Heavy duty density paver blocks that will hold up for many, many years and endure through delivery trucks and a lot of vehicle traffic will be more expensive than those engineered for foot traffic only. It takes a more substantial mix of materials to stand up to large box trucks such as your furniture store may use to deliver new bedroom sets.

What exactly is are paver stones? It is a brick engineered for ground installation that will bear weight that it was designed to be used for. There are “brick pavers”, “interlocking concrete pavers”, and “stone pavers” styles to choose from. All of them are designed with the simple purpose of laying on a flat surface to create a driveway, patio or sidewalk in mind. The best types of pavers are those that will interlock with the polymeric sand needed for a long lasting installation which is compacted solidly between them.

Today’s professional contractor grade of concrete pavers are usually manufactured at 4" x 8" x 2 3/8" thick. Proven thousands of times over, these paver stones are very strong and can test out over 12,000 PSI. Additionally, these more weight withstanding pavers have many California advantages over lower priced interlocking stone paving materials. The phenomenal weight resistance, crack free, extreme durability and affordability. All that plus maintenance free performance and beauty not found in any other paving material. Getting your money's worth from paving exterior surfaces today is best obtained with paver stones.