Landscaping of a personal plot is one of the main tasks of each gardener. First of all, you should take care of convenient and beautiful paths. To find the most suitable options, you need to consider many factors. These include the composition and mobility of the soil, the harmonious combination of covering the track with other decorative elements and your building skills. For our site, we chose paving slabs. And they did it not in vain, because it is this coating that meets all the requirements so necessary for us. And we began our acquaintance with this finishing material with a simple question: “How to lay tiles?”
Before starting work, we were interested in both the technical characteristics of the building material, and the speed of the work, and, of course, labor costs. Since we decided to do everything on our own, I had to thoroughly learn how to lay tiles. And the time that we spent on it paid off with interest.
But let's start in order. Before laying tiles, you need to determine the purpose and area of future tracks. Why is this done? Everything is simple. If you only walk along paths, then less building material and work will be required. And if they are designed to move or park the car, then they need to be strengthened.
To begin, we draw a plan of our site and mark out all the paths and driveways, the parking lot and the blind area of the house. We calculate the area and quantity of necessary building materials. A wide range of colors and shapes, as well as numerous options for laying tiles allow you to achieve a harmonious combination of paths with the surrounding landscape.
Now we are preparing the right tool. We will need: a broom, tape measure, about 15 meters of twine and pegs, a rubber hammer, a rake and a shovel, a wheelbarrow and a saw for stone, a standard carpentry and linear level, geotextiles, as well as a flat construction vibrator.
Before laying the tiles, some preparatory work will be required. Referring to the drawn plan, mark up on the track. We use pegs and twine for this purpose. After that, we carry out the excavation. For simple paths, a depth of 10-15 centimeters will be required, and for driveways and parking lots, 20-30 centimeters are needed.
Carefully remove the sod and set it aside. We need it for subsequent installation along the boundaries of the tracks. We remove the soil throughout the track, increasing its width by 15-20 centimeters on each side. Only after the completion of these works, we begin to prepare the base for subsequent tile laying.
For this we use a sand-gravel mixture. The thickness of the base for the tracks should be at least 2-3 centimeters, and for the driveway - 15 centimeters. We lay geotextiles on the bottom and evenly fill the prepared trench with a mixture of the base. After that, we level it with a rake, pour water from a watering can and tamper with a construction vibrator. You need to know that the layer height for simultaneous tamping should not exceed 10 centimeters. If you need a larger amount of foundation, then you will need to carry out ramming in several stages.
Since the height of the standard paving slabs is 6 centimeters, the distance from the rammed foundation to the estimated track height should be 8 centimeters. The surface should be flat, with a slight slope in one direction to drain rainwater.
After preparing the foundation, it is necessary to lay the curb. You can use ready-made blocks or just set the required number of tiles on the edge. The choice is yours. We opted for ready-made long blocks, since installing and aligning them is much simpler and faster.
We lay out the first row of tiles and mark the position of the border on both sides of the track on it. It is for this purpose that we increased the width during excavation. It is necessary to arrange the border so that when laying the coating it was possible to use a larger number of whole tiles. Only after this we dig a small trench into which we lay the prepared border. On top of the base, pour a layer of sand and level it with the help of a lath, periodically checking with the level.
Now let's look at how to lay a tile. You should start from the right corner. This will maximize the use of edge stones. We select the layout scheme in advance, in accordance with the general style of the site and your preferences. During work, do not forget to leave 3 millimeters between the individual elements of the coating. We try not to press hard on the tiles, gently tapping them with a hammer.
Using colored elements for laying, we take tiles from several pallets simultaneously. A slight difference in shades due to the different amounts of dye added can be very visible. By mixing the tiles together, you can even out the overall perception of the entire track surface.
After the final laying of whole tiles, we proceed to fill the remaining empty areas. Slightly file the tiles, then evenly split. We put it in the voids and make sure that it fits as tightly as possible to the elements surrounding it.
After completion of the laying works, the tiled section is vibrated several times by the paved area. This will help bring the tile to its final level and tamp the sand cushion as well as the sand at the joints of the tile.
The last step will be to sprinkle the track with a little dry sand and re-compact. After that, we sweep the track and carefully pour water from the watering can. We leave the finished coating for three days for full adhesion of the tiles. After finishing all work, we use our tracks with great pleasure for 25-30 years.