Each year, to keep the weeds out of the joints of the brick pavers you may have laid on your patio or driveway, you clean your paving and with each clean comes the task of replacing the kiln dried sand. If you like to clean your brick pavers more than a few times a year, the area that you cover brushing sand into the joints, replacing lost sand soon mounts up. But there is a solution to the problem.
The sand used for the joints between the paving bricks are now being manufactured with weed killing properties that will inhibit the growth of weeds for up to 10 years. This is great news because the downside to paving blocks is that when they are cleaned the jointing sand between the bricks is lost because it is washed away. You replace the sand, then a couple of weeks later the weeds are back in ever greater numbers. So you have to weed kill the paving bricks to prevent the weeds growing again between the joints of the pavers. Considering the cost of weed killers is considerable and time consuming most pavers soon become neglected.
The joint sand properties work by containing special minerals that have a naturally high PH value which help prevent the regrowth of any weeds. The sand is made environmentally friendly and completely harmless to children and pets. The sand is also weather resistant and can withstand many years of weather without effecting the weed inhibiting properties of the sand.
Here is a guide to using weedkilling sand for pavers instead of normal joint sand
- Your brick pavers will need to be washed with sufficient force so that the top amount of the joint sand between your pavers has been removed.
- Allow the paving to fully dry. The paving needs to be completely dry to allow the sand into the joints of the paving. If the paving is still damp or wet the sand will stick to the paving and will not fill the gaps completely.
- Then fill the joints of the paving. As a rough guide you will need between 3-5kg of sand per sq. meter of pavers, based on 100mm x 200mm size bricks.
- Brush into the joints of the paving using a soft broom removing all excess sand from the brick paving but make sure that the joints are full to the top of the bricks.
- Save any left over sand for future use in any areas you may have missed or is lost due to wind.
As you can see, there is no difference in the way the new weed inhibiting sand is used or in the way it is applied to the brick pavers and although a little extra cost is involved when first buying the weed killing jointing sand it seems a good way to keep weeds out of paving, saving time and money.