Base repair is what happens when levelling the surface is not enough. The compacted stone under the pavers has either washed out or was never deep enough for what crosses it, so it gets dug out, replaced and compacted in layers before a single paver goes back down.
A base is sized for what crosses it, and the two numbers that matter are depth and compaction. A pedestrian walkway can live on about 150 millimetres of well compacted granular; a driveway carrying a car wants closer to 300, and an area that takes a delivery van or a bin truck wants more again.
What we dig out is usually one of two things: a base that was correct once and has been washed thin by water moving through it, or a base that was never more than a few inches of screening tipped onto clay and raked level.
The second is common on surfaces laid as a weekend job, and it fails the same way every time, gradually and then all at once under a wheel. Rebuilding means removing the failed material rather than topping it up, because compacting new stone onto loose old stone just puts the soft layer deeper down.
Before quoting we lift a small area and measure what is actually under there, because base depth is the single biggest variable in the price.
Dig out, do not top up
Failed material is removed rather than buried, since compacting fresh stone over loose stone leaves the soft layer intact a little deeper down.
Build in compacted lifts
Clean granular goes in and is plate compacted in layers, each one checked before the next, which is what gives the base its actual strength.
Screed, relay and close
A true bedding layer is screeded over the finished base, the pavers are reset to grade and the joints filled with new polymeric sand.
What It Costs
Why base repair prices as its own line
Base work is materials, labour and disposal, and it is the part of a job that can double the number once we see what is down there. So it is quoted separately from the paving rather than blended in, and we open a test spot before giving you a figure rather than after.
That way the range you get is built on what is actually under your surface. See how re-levelling cost is broken down, why edge restraint decides whether it holds, and what sunken driveways need beneath them.
As its own lineQuoted
Opened before pricingTest spot
Material, labour, disposalCovers
Related Work
Other re-levelling work in Toronto
Base repair almost always arrives with one of these.
Around 150 millimetres of compacted granular under a walkway and closer to 300 under a driveway. Anything taking heavier vehicles wants more, and that is what we size it against.
Not if the old base has failed. Compacting new material over loose material leaves the soft layer in place a little deeper, and the surface settles again into the same spot.
A whole area dropping into a bowl is the base. Individual stones at different heights with no overall dip is the bedding layer above it, which is a smaller repair.
Yes, and that disposal is part of the quote. Spreading failed material across the lawn is how it ends up back under the surface a year later.
A properly built base outlives the pavers on top of it, which is twenty five years or more. The ones we dig out are almost never more than a few inches deep.
Not well. Compaction needs the stone at the right moisture, and saturated subgrade pumps instead of tightening. We would rather move you two weeks than build a base on ground that will not carry it, and we say so when we see it.
