A paved surface should be dry within a few hours of rain stopping. Water still standing the next morning is telling you something specific, and puddles are useful diagnostically: where they form, how deep they get and how long they last narrows the cause down fast.
A puddle in the middle of an otherwise fine surface usually means the base under it has washed and the pavers have dropped into a bowl, so that is a re-levelling with a drainage question attached.
A puddle along one edge is normally a grade problem, where the fall either never existed or has been lost as the surface settled.
A puddle at a specific point that appears within minutes of rain starting is almost always a downspout, because a roof delivers a great deal of water to one spot very quickly.
And water standing across a whole area that used to drain suggests the joints have filled with fines or the surface has been sealed over blocked joints. Four different causes, four different repairs, and telling them apart costs half an hour on site with a hose if it has not rained recently.
We look at the surface during or after rain where possible, or flood a section, because a dry patio does not show you where the low point is.
Read the shape and timing
Middle, edge, single point or everywhere, and how fast it appears. That combination narrows the cause down to one of four things.
Check the obvious sources
Downspouts, hose bibs, garden grades and blocked outlets get looked at before anything more complicated is proposed.
Fix the cause, then the surface
Re-levelling over an unchanged source settles again, so the drainage work comes first and the paving repair follows it.
Winter Ice
Standing water becomes a hazard in January
A puddle that is a nuisance in October is a sheet of ice in January, and it forms in exactly the place people walk because that is the low point of a route they use.
On a driveway apron or at an entrance that moves this from a maintenance item to a safety one, which is why we treat entrance pooling as the priority on any property.
A few hours from the rain stopping. Water still standing the next morning means the surface is holding it rather than shedding it, and that is worth investigating.
Very much. Middle, edge, one specific point or everywhere each point at a different cause, and so does how quickly the puddle appears once rain starts.
Very likely. A roof delivers a large volume to one small spot in minutes, which is why a puddle that appears almost immediately usually has a downspout behind it.
Sometimes, if the cause is a downspout or a garden grade beyond the paving. If the fall or the base is the problem, the surface has to come up.
Yes, over time. It works into the base, carries fines out and leaves loose material that compacts under load, which is how a puddle becomes a settled area.
It is the same problem wearing a worse coat. Water that sat is water that froze, and freezing lifts the pavers around it a little every cycle. A puddle you tolerate in October is what widens the joints by April.
