Water in the base with nowhere to drain. It freezes, expands and pushes upward, and it does it again every cycle until the water has somewhere else to go.
Re-Levelling
Steps and Porches
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Cleaning and Sealing
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Service Area
Interlock repair in Brampton
Brampton mixes established streets with newer development, and a lot of it sits on soils that hold water rather than letting it through. That combination is hard on a shallow base, because water that cannot drain has nowhere to go but into the stone above it every time the ground freezes.
- Drainage checked as a matter of course
- Base opened before a price
- Same stone goes back down
Soil And Water
A base that cannot drain is a base that heaves
Depth alone does not make a base work. What makes it work is that water passing through can keep going, and over a soil that holds water it often cannot. It sits in the granular layer instead, and when it freezes it expands with nowhere to expand except upward.
That is why on these soils a surface can be built to a reasonable depth and still lift every winter, and why simply adding more stone underneath does not fix it.
The repair has to give the water a route out, whether that is regrading so less arrives in the first place, a drain at the low point, or opening the perimeter so it can leave. Then the base depth matters.
See how pooling water is traced, what a channel drain needs to work, and what base repair covers underneath.
How It Runs
Four steps where the ground holds water
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Look at it wet
We want to see where water goes, so we look during or after rain, or flood a section, because a dry surface hides its low point entirely.
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Find the route out
Daylight, a dry well or a regrade. If there is no honest route for the water, more base depth is not going to fix the surface.
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Give the water somewhere to go
Drainage first, quoted on its own line, because a re-level over ground that still holds water lifts again next winter.
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Then rebuild and relay
Base to the right depth for the traffic, compacted in lifts, with your stone back on top and fresh sand in the joints.
Back Gardens
Access through a gate is most of the labour
A lot of Brampton work is back garden patios reached through a side gate, and that changes the price more than the square footage does. Every barrow of base in and every barrow of spoil out is carried by hand, dozens of times.
We measure the gate on the visit rather than discovering it on the morning. See how sunken patio work is priced, what pooling water does through a winter, and how grading and slope is corrected first.
Gate access
Price driver
Carried by hand
Every barrow
On the visit
Gate measured
What We Do Here
What we repair in Brampton
Drainage first here more often than anywhere else we work.
Drainage
Grade, drains and edge restraint, which here is usually where to start.
Learn moreSunken Patios
Back garden surfaces lifted and re-pitched so water leaves.
Learn moreRe-Levelling
Sunken and uneven areas lifted and the base corrected to grade.
Learn moreJoint Washout
Joints that keep emptying traced to the water emptying them.
Learn moreCleaning and Sealing
Cleaned, re-sanded and sealed, in that order and no other.
Learn moreWhat It Costs
Real ranges, with access and base depth as the two variables.
Learn moreCommon Questions
Brampton interlock questions
Asked on most first calls from this area.
Not over ground that holds water. More granular just means more material holding more water, so the drainage route has to be sorted before depth helps.
It ranges from a few hundred for a downspout extension and a regrade to a few thousand for a channel drain piped out. It is quoted separately so you can see it.
Because everything is carried. A gate between the truck and the patio turns each load of base and each barrow of spoil into a walk, repeated dozens of times.
Yes, and on a tight budget that is the right order. Fixing where the water goes stops the damage getting worse while you plan the cosmetic work.
Clay is part of it, because it holds water rather than letting it through, and water is what heaves. It is not a reason to give up on the surface. It is a reason the drainage has to be right before the paving is, which changes the order rather than the outcome.
★★★★★
Our Brampton patio had pooling water and weeds in every joint. Regraded, re-sanded and sealed. Dry and clean.
Brampton
★★★★
They matched a discontinued paver on our Brampton walkway with a close alternative in the border. Looks intentional.
Brampton
★★★★★
Retaining wall in Brampton rebuilt with drainage behind it. First builder skipped that, which is why it failed.
Brampton
★★★★★
Quick, tidy driveway repair in Brampton. The crew left the site cleaner than they found it.
Brampton
From the Guides
Brampton guides: water, frost and access
Winter and Salt
Why Toronto Driveways Settle After Winter Thaw
Every spring, Toronto property owners find sunken pavers and cracked joints where the surface looked fine in November. Freeze-thaw cycles exploit weak base layers, and snow masks the damage until it melts.
Read article
Drainage
Why Toronto Clay Soil Wrecks Interlock Base Drainage
Toronto's clay-heavy soil does not drain, it holds. Every wet spring, that trapped water works its way under interlock bases and starts the cycle of settlement and washout that brings pavers down.
Read article
Joint Repair
Why Joints Sink in Older Toronto Interlock Driveways
Most 1990s and 2000s driveways were laid without edge restraint, and the joints have been losing sand ever since. Understanding that migration is the first step toward a repair that holds.
Read articleBook a Look
Get the water traced before the pavers move
Half an hour with a level usually explains the whole surface.
Free written quote before anything is lifted.