Driveway pavers in Wilmington NC - a solid base, tight edges and a clean street end

Most people who call me about pavers have a concrete drive with a crack right where the tires sit, or a gravel drive that keeps washing out toward the street. The price mostly moves with how many square feet you're paving, whether the old driveway has to be torn out and hauled off, how deep the base goes, the paver and pattern you pick, and how much cutting the edges and the street end need. The schedule turns on dry weather and on any city permit for the part by the street. If you want a matching path to the front door, our walkway construction work can go in at the same time. When I walk the drive with you, you get all of that in a written estimate for your own driveway.

Before you sign anything, I go over the base, the edging and where your driveway meets the city's strip by the street, so every piece of the drive is spelled out in the estimate. Once work starts, our crew digs out the old drive and hauls it away, then lays the stone base and packs it in layers so it doesn't settle later. Next we screed the sand, dragging it flat with a straight board, and lay the pavers in the pattern you picked. We set the edging along the sides so the pavers can't creep out and cut the pieces that meet the garage, the lawn and the street. Then we run a plate compactor over the whole drive and sweep sand into the joints to lock it together. Last, we clean up and I walk it with you so you can see where the water heads off it.

A new driveway often shows up whatever's next to it. If your drive cuts along a slope, our retaining wall construction keeps the yard from sliding down onto the pavers. When the brick steps or porch beside it have tired mortar, masonry restoration brings them up so the front of the house looks like it belongs together.

In Wilmington, the last stretch of your driveway is often city land. The city's right-of-way is public property that takes in driveways, curbs and sidewalks, and it typically runs 10 to 12 feet past the edge of the street or curb. Driveway permits come from the city's Engineering Right-of-Way office, and anyone working in that strip has to have a valid permit on site. I'll tell you which office handles your address, and we help you get the paperwork together before we start. We also make the NC 811 call before digging there, as the city requires, so buried lines get marked first.

Around here we see a lot of older concrete drives cracked across the middle and gravel drives that wash toward the road after a hard rain, and the fix usually starts with a proper base and a plan for the water. We're based in Wilmington and pave drives across the cities around it, and on jobs in Leland and Myrtle Grove I check who handles the street end too, because it isn't always the same office.