It's All in the Details -The Benefits of Standardizing Construction Details, Materials, and Techniques

If you put all of your construction foreman and laborers together in one room and asked them to describe how they build a paver walkway or patio, how many different answers would you get?

As I'm sure you quickly realize, the reality is that you are going to have as many different answers as you have employees. The problem is that you shouldn't.

Would they describe the same process in the same order, utilizing the same products and materials? What about your landscape crews? Do they all install plant material utilizing the same backfill mix or do they just use the existing soil? Are they supposed to untie the burlap and fold it back, cut slits in it or just plant it as is? What about irrigation, lighting, lawn installations or grading and drainage? Would your answers be the same as your employees?

Does your company even have a defined process or agreed upon set of construction standards and details? If you've answered "yeah, well kind of" to most of these questions don't worry you are not alone. You should, however, be very concerned about this and take the next ten minutes or so and read on.

When you sit down and really think about it, some of your employees have learned their construction techniques at your company and some have been trained at a variety of other companies. All who have completely different ways of installing work and managing their businesses. Many of your workers may have years of experience in landscape construction, but are they doing it right or conversely are they doing it the way you want it to be done and up to your company's standards and level of detail.

One of the most important things that you can do for your business, your clients and yourself is to develop standardized construction details and processes for everything that your company does. Not all at once, mind you, but rather one step at a time. As a company you should decide what your standards and processes are, as well as, your standardized construction details. Once you do this you should document them, and then finally train your employees to do things by your company's standards.

As landscape contractors, there are many different skill sets required for a typical residential design build project. Sometimes, I think as an industry, there are too many. Not only do we plant, prune and transplant plant material, we often need to use heavy equipment in adverse conditions to do it. Besides this, we build and install retaining walls, patios, ponds, pools, lighting, irrigation and underground drainage systems. We need to understand physics, chemistry, hydrology, trigonometry, geometry, calculus, engineering, and auto mechanics. Throw in some psych 101, conversational Spanish and meteorology and you're on your way. Don't worry though, as you will see, there is hope and a way to get a handle on all of this.

Although landscape contracting is extremely diversified with so many details and processes, in this article we are going to just look at one aspect of our profession -- paver installations. By the time you're finished reading this article you will have a newly found respect and appreciation of why it is imperative that you begin to standardize your construction details, techniques and materials. So let's get a better understanding of what this issue is all about, learn some great ideas on how to manage this problem and start saving time and money today.

The first we need to do is understand how is it possible that something as common as a paver installation will frequently have so many problems? For example, has this ever happened to you? After the walkway is completely installed, your customer decides that this was not the color that they picked out and they really don't like the paver. Or for some reason, your top foreman thought that a 5% slope on a patio was OK this time. And of course, once again, no one put a sleeve under the pavers for future irrigation and lighting. It's enough to make you crazy. What is wrong with everyone?

Truth be told, it's not them -- it's your process. Your construction techniques and current business practices allows these types of mistakes to occur over and over again.

In addition to my consulting business, I teach a landscape graphics class. I have a very well organized and well defined process, that I have used and developed over the past 30 years. However in class, mistakes do happen. To determine whose mistake it is I have developed this long standing philosophy. "If one of my students makes a mistake it is their fault, if more than one makes a mistake it is my fault". This philosophy should apply to your business as well. If you have a well defined paver installation process you can begin to develop a similar philosophy. If one crew often makes mistakes it is them, if several crews make mistakes it is your process.

So what can you do to better define your processes and minimize your mistakes? Let's take a look and see. When it comes right down to it there are only 6 basic processes that are required to install pavers (although some are repeated several times).

1. Excavate


2. Compact


3. Level


4. Cut


5. Spike


6. Sweep

Ironically there are only six unique materials that are required to install a paver patio or walk. What materials you actually use will vary by region, company and manufacturers specifications.

1. Base Material


2. Screed Material


3. Pavers


4. Edge Restraint


5. Spikes


6. Joint Sand

It seems simple and straightforward enough, so how and why do so many things go wrong? Let's dig a little deeper (pun intended) and see what actually happens.

As stated earlier, the first big problem is that many of your employees have different installation procedures and use different materials to complete the same task. For any company to be successful this cannot be the way. So the very first thing that you need to agree upon is what are the standard and specific materials, or ingredients, that your company will use in each process. Will the base material be quarry process, recycle or shoulder stone? Will you screed with stonedust, chipstone or a sand product? Is your standard specification to sweep the joints with mason sand, play sand or polymeric sand?

Now that you have the materials specified, you need to agree on and develop a standard installation process that will cover about 90% of the paver work that you do. Here are some basic things that you need to know:

1. What will be the excavation depth for typical walkways and patios? How much should you over dig on each side?


2. When are the sleeves or conduits installed? What size are they, how many do you use and where are they typically located (at the curb, steps or both)?


3. What will be the depth of the base and screed bed and what materials will you use?


4. What do you screed with -- pipes, 2x4's or whatever is lying around the shop? If you use pipes, what is the diameter -1", 1 ½" or 2"? (Just and aside - if you use 2x4's you should switch to pipes and if you use whatever is lying around the shop you have some much bigger concerns.)


5. Will you compact the sub-base, base and screed bed? What about the pavers themselves, do you compact them before or after the sand is swept in the joints -- or both?


6. When is the edge restraint installed and how what is the spacing on the spikes?


7. What is the minimum and maximum allowable % slope for patios and walkways?

Once you have defined all of these processes and procedures you should document them in written form, along with a drawing that explains your process. Finally, you need to train your employees to make sure that everyone knows them, understands them and uses them.

Now hold on a minute, before you start thinking, "that's great, I'm done, thanks for the help, no need to read the rest of this. Unfortunately, there is another very big issue, besides your standardized construction techniques, that is thwarting your ability to install pavers profitably. It's the paver itself. When you really consider it, there are literally thousands of choices of pavers, patterns, colors and textures available to you and your clients. That's right -thousands! Unfortunately only "one" choice is actually what the client wants. Sounds like pretty lousy odds to me and a lot of potential for a variety of mistakes.

Think about it. Each manufacturer has their own line of pavers with different color selections. Right now I am looking through the Techo-Bloc catalogue (which is a very popular brand here in NJ and one I frequently specify). In the "tumbled" category alone, there are over a dozen popular styles (Athena, Olympia, Trias etc.). Each style comes in a about 8 or 9 different colors which gives your client over 100 color/paver combinations to choose from. But wait, it doesn't stop there. What pattern are you going to use and what direction will you install them in? The random patterns are usually pretty straight forward, they either go at a 45 or 90 degree angle to the house. Other pavers, like Trias, which are dimensional in one direction can be run perpendicular, parallel, or at a 45 degree angle. Now your 100 color/paver choices has grown to 200 to 300 choices.

Let's look at something as innocent as the "Atlantis" which has a traditional brick dimension (approx 4x8) yet can be laid in an incredible variety of ways. The most common patterns are basket weave, running bond and herringbone. Herringbone itself can be laid 8 different ways, basket weave and running bond, 4 each. Like the others, Atlantis also comes in about 9 colors. So when you do the math, there 144 possible combinations of just colors and patterns. And don't think you can just use clay brick pavers instead-- have you seen how many different colors of "red" there are these days?

Still not done. Now we need to discuss the available choices for the border. We can't forget about the border now can we? Are you going to use a 4x8, 6x9 or 6x6? Can you purchase the border paver separately or are you going to pick one of the sizes out of the pallet and hope that you have enough to do the job. Which direction will you run border? Parallel or perpendicular to the pattern. Will it be a single paver, a double paver or some unique creation? Is going to be the same color as the field or a contrasting color?

Finally, just one last thing that you must beware of. Even after selecting the paver, color, pattern, direction and border, there is still one huge opportunity to completely blow it and install the entire patio incorrectly. What can it be you ask? For those of you who are not familiar with these two terms you must now ingrain them into your mind. Each time before your crew lays down a single paver you must get everyone's attention, clear your throat and utter "only one" of these sentences "bumpy side up" or "smooth side up". Many of you are quite familiar with theses terms (and right now some of you are laughing and others are turning red) because you have had to learn these terms the hard way. Like me, you have had the very unenviable task of completely flipping over an entire paver patio because you forgot to say 3 little words. (BTW- for those of you who have not experienced this, as an added bonus, all of your "cuts" are now backwards and have to be completely redone.)

Again I want to make it clear that Techo Bloc (or Tech-no Bloc as it is called by homeowners) is one of my favorite brands of pavers and the one that I am most familiar with. Other manufacturers that are very well known and very popular around here are EP Henry, Cambridge, Unilock, Belgard (Anchor) and Trans Pave all of which have a large variety styles, colors and patterns. So the concepts above are the same and apply to each of these companies, along with the brands that are popular in your state. The problem is that even working with just one manufacturer, your clients will have to decide between thousands of possible paver combinations making the installation much more complex than they have to be.

Now that I have your attention and have shown you how and why things can get so complicated so quickly let's look at some simple things that you can do today to make things easier. The first thing you absolutely must do is limit the selections of pavers that your clients can choose from to your most popular pavers in your most popular colors. If they go outside these standard pavers, you should consider it a custom installation and the price goes up, as it should.

Let me explain to you how limiting the selections are actually doing both you and your clients a favor. As I have shown, there are just so many choices available that it is literally overwhelming for anyone. Additionally, this is probably your clients first time doing this, but most likely not yours. Help them pick the paver colors, patterns and details that you know will work with their style of home and don't let them make a mistake. If you're worried about being blamed, don't be. There is more of a chance that they will be unhappy if you leave the selections up to them. You're the expert, so be the expert.

Besides reducing stress for everyone, limiting paver and color selections also provides you with some other major benefits. Instead of constantly moving around those left over half pallets of unknown pavers (which you will ultimately dump at the recycling center for a fee), you will have half pallets of "useable" pavers that can be installed on your next project. Instead of running to the supply yard to buy a "row" when you run short (if they'll even sell it to you) you can just bring that extra half pallet in case you need it. If not, you'll use it next time. Next, instead of picking up a few skids at a time, you can order a trailer load of pavers directly from the manufacturer and have them drop shipped to you at a 15% cost reduction. So now you can watch your crews install pavers faster with a higher level of quality while you lower your costs and raise your profits.

Suddenly, your estimating will become incredibly accurate because you are now estimating and building to a specified standard. When job costing, your "estimated" versus "actual" will seem to be identical. Also, this information can help you quickly determine which crews are efficient and which crews require more training. Without blinking an eye you can rattle off things like, "a standard 500 SF patio with minimal cutting will require 11 tons of QP (or=), 5 tons of stone dust (or=), 540 SF of pavers (8% waste), approx 100LF of edge restraint, (100) 10" galvanized spikes, 7 bags of polymeric sand and should take you 74 MH to complete with 5 Hours of machine time. Not too shabby.

What's that expression, "the first step in fixing a problem is admitting that you have one"? Well it's time to confess so that you can move forward. This way, the next time someone asks you or your employees how they build a paver patio, you will all have the same answers. Once you develop this type of system, you can document it and create a company training manual for your existing and future employees. By creating standard details, limiting material selections and developing standardized installation procedures you can take this seemingly impossible task and turn it into a highly manageable and profitable one. Done correctly you will reduce your costs, increase your profits, reduce your installation time and improve your overall customer satisfaction rating.

Jody Shilan, MLA is a former landscape contractor, designer and salesman. Now as a "green industry consultant" he uses his 30 years of experience to help landscape design/ build companies organize their systems, grow their businesses and increase their profits by developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOP's). He is a board member of PLANET, NJLCA, APLD and BCC and can always be reached at jshilan@optonline.net or (201) 783-2844. You can also check him out on the web at www.jodyshilan.com

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