The DIY Ultimate Guide for Installing and Laying Crazy Paving, Flagstone Pavers

Our Range of natural stone crazy paving (flagstone pavers) includes the following natural stones:

There are basically 2 forms of crazy paving in natural stone:

Natural Form – Generally around 20mm – 40mm in thickness making it a MUST to be laid into a wet mix slurry outside your home, generally more suited to an expert paving tradesman.

Calibrated (generally with a sawn back) – Generally this material has a variance in thickness of only 5mm. This makes it VERY easy to install and very suitable to installation both inside your home or outside paving around swimming pools and on your back patio.

The 2 methods of Installation are...

Adhesive Bed- Best suited to calibrated crazy paving such as our Ivory travertine crazy paving or similar products to be installed directly onto a existing concrete slab. Clean the laying surface (remove debris, dust oil etc), apply the adhesive to the floor using a notch trowel 10-15mm thick, and back butter the base of the stone elements as well to ensure a positive adhesion takes place.

Dry lay the stone pcs and pre-cut, thus making it easy to install in the wet adhesive mix. The stone pieces are then compacted evenly on the adhesive with a rubber mallet to ensure consistent contact with the glue. Consistent open joints should be allowed for at 7-10mm. Cutting Ideally it is recommended that cutting be done using a bench saw with a wet diamond blade. The stone should be washed immediately after it is cut to avoid cutting paste drying and staining the surface of the product.

Crystalline silica (or silica dust) is a common mineral found in soil, sand, and some types of stone. It is also used in the construction of materials such as bricks, tiles, concrete, and artificial stone. Silica exposure can cause a range of health issues, so protective equipment should be worn whilst using power tools to cut, grind and drill such products. Appropriate safety guidelines relating to silica exposure should be adhered to on your construction site. Grouting Compound It is recommended to use a high-grade pre-bagged grouting compound that is suitable for the application. Grouting Methods 1. Dampen grout joints and stone with a sponge 2. Place grout into joints, ensuring no voids, to the full depth of the paving stones. Remove any excess grout with a rubber grouting trowel on its edge. Then sponge clean the paving surface with minimal water in the thick sponge, ensuring all excess grout has been removed. We recommend that after an area is laid it should not be loaded for a period to enable the adhesive to achieve peak strength. Pedestrian traffic around 2 days, Vehicle Traffic: 2-3 weeks.

• Sand and Cement- No existing slab then simply excavate around 120mm of soil, level out and then fill in up to 100mm with roadbase and heavily compact.

• You will need the following materials to be added to your cement mixer for EVERY mix…

• 12 shovels of white pre washed sand

• 1 bag of white cement

• 10L of water mixed with 100ml of Efflock to reduce any efflorescence

• 50ml of Bycol to keep the mix workable.

Following these steps:

• Turn on the cement mixer

• Add the Efflock water into mixer

• Add 6 shovels of bricklayer’s sand and allow the Efflock and sand to mix. Once you achieve some consistency, add the next 6 shovels of bricklayers sand

• Review the mixture and if required, add more Efflock to the mixer so that the sand has a good moisture level

• Once you’ve achieved a nice creamy consistency, add the bag of white cement, and let everything mix quite thoroughly

• Continue adding Efflock to maintain the moisture levels

• Let the mixer spin until the consistency of all the ingredients are fluffy with no visible signs of sand or cement, to finish add a capful of Bycol to keep the mix workable longer.

Dry lay the stone pcs and pre cut, thus making it easy to install in the wet sand and cement mortar mix. The mortar mix bed should be 25mm thick with no voids and evenly spread. Remove all loose material from the back of the stone before laying. Apply the bonding slurry compound to the back of every pc of stone in an even coating (1-2mm thick). 6. Place the stone into position gently tapping down with a rubber mallet (white rubber mallet is recommended to avoid marking the product). It is important to ensure that there are no air voids under the product as this may cause the adhesion of the stone to fail or the product may not be fully supported. Tap the stone down to the desired level. Remember that once again consistent open joints should be allowed for at 7-10mm spacing.

Leveling

Unlike other paving alternatives which use a straight and geometrical pattern and format, crazy paving means that the installation will be exactly how it sounds: crazy and unformatted.

Additionally, there is also the possibility that the surface will be different depending on the type of product used. As such, whether you’re installing crazy paving for a patio, pool area, or courtyard, it’s very important to set reference points while installing crazy paving so that you can clearly track the starting level and the finished level and ensure that everything is (more or less) consistent.

So how do we do this?

First, we install string lines in a grid pattern to establish a set of reference points. Since crazy pavers can vary in surface structure and thickness, the stringlines help us gauge how much mortar to use and reduce our room for errors when laying the pavers.

Once you have the gridlines established, spread the mortar onto the surface and ensure that the pavers sit about 1/2mm under the stringline. If they protrude, tap the pavers to level the surface and achieve the desired level and gradient.

After you’ve installed the crazy pavers and you’re happy with the levelling, it’s time to add the grout. At RBG Landscapes, we grout crazy pavers using a wide joint sand-based grout supplied by Ardex or Mapei.

The produce we recommend is the Ardex WJ50, for a variety of reasons- Firstly, it’s available in a variety of colours which means you can pick one that will match your pavers. Secondly, it’s sand based with a pre-mixed back and a maximum joint width of 50mm. This combination guarantees that the grout won’t shrink or crack: two important factors to consider when choosing grout for crazy paving.

Now, onto making the grout and its application.

Mix a 20kg bag of grout with 2L of Ardex grout booster. To achieve the desired consistency, we recommend mixing the grout using an electric drill with a paddle. Once you have the mix, apply the grout into the joints using a squidge tool. Ensure that all the joints are sufficiently full and levelled with the surface of the pavers.

Scrape away any excess and wipe the grout from the stone’s surface using a tiling sponge so that there is no residue grout left. The trick here is to always use clean water so that the stones and joints remain clean. Repeat this process until all the joints are filled with grout and you’re satisfied with the result.

We've been supplying crazy paving to Aussies for over 35+ years!

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