We handle paving all over Dunedin

Older Dunedin driveways crack and sink

Dunedin grew up around its downtown and the marina well before most of north Pinellas filled in with subdivisions. Close to Main Street there are older bungalows on small lots. Further out, the streets fill with concrete block ranch houses that went up after the war. Plenty of those homes still have a concrete driveway that has been through a lot of Florida summers. You can see it in the cracks across the middle and the edges that have dropped into the grass.

Pouring a new slab on the same ground tends to bring the same cracks back, because the trouble is underneath. The ground here is sandy. If the base under the old slab was never packed down, or rain has run under one edge for years, the concrete loses support. It snaps where it is weakest. Pavers laid on a dug out and compacted base spread the weight of a car across that base. The joints between them let the surface move a little without breaking.

So a driveway job in Dunedin starts with breaking out the old slab and seeing what was under it. We dig out the soft spots and grade the ground so rain runs away from the house. Then the base gets compacted before a paver goes down. On an older house we also spend time on color. A new driveway should look like it belongs with a house that has stood for decades. Color matching comes up by name in our Google reviews.

• Old concrete driveways broken out and removed
• Soft ground dug out and the base compacted
• Grading that sends rain away from the house
• Paver colors matched to older homes
• Pavers lifted and reset where roots pushed them up

Pavers near the water need more upkeep

Dunedin sits right on St. Joseph Sound, with Caladesi Island across the water. Homes along the shore, and on the streets a few blocks back, live with salt air most days. The pavers themselves are rarely what fails. The trouble is the surface and the sand in between them. A white haze builds up on the face of the pavers, and the shady side of a patio turns green after a wet summer.

That sand between the pavers is what locks them together. Heavy summer rain washes a little of it out with every storm, and once enough is gone, weeds and ants move into the gaps. Water then gets down into the base. Loose pavers start to rock underfoot or sink below the ones next to them. On a pool deck, where people walk barefoot and wet, that is a real tripping spot. It happens slowly, so most people only notice when a paver finally tips.

The fix is regular cleaning and sealing. We pressure wash off the haze and the green, refill the joints with sand, and seal the surface to hold that sand in place. Shivani Haripal had us seal a pool deck and wrote, "They did an awesome job sealing our pool deck! It looks fantastic." If a storm ever pushes salt water over a low yard near the Sound, have the joints checked, even if the pavers look fine.

We reset pavers that oak roots lifted

Many of Dunedin's older neighborhoods sit under big live oaks, and that shade keeps those streets cooler in summer. Oak roots spread wide and run shallow. Over the years they push up whatever sits on top of them, from a public sidewalk to the driveway in front of your garage. A poured concrete slab has only one way to answer that pressure, and that is to crack.

Pavers can be fixed without tearing the whole thing out. When a root pushes a section up, we lift those pavers, rebuild the base under them, and lay the same pavers back in place. Because the original pavers go back down, the repair matches the rest of the surface. Michael Schacter had us repair pavers and wrote that the team "worked quickly and left everything looking brand new."

The same shade keeps a patio or pool deck damp for hours after an afternoon storm. Damp pavers grow a green film, and that film is slick. Around a pool, that matters more than anywhere else at the house. We slope a deck so water runs off instead of sitting, and we talk through surfaces that give bare feet some grip. Jennifer Broxado had us put pavers around a new hot tub and wrote about the "non-slip surfaces" in the finished spa area.

Getting a price in Dunedin

Call (813) 330-4403, or ask for an online estimate, and tell us what is there now and what you want in its place. We come out to the house in Dunedin, look at the ground and any trees near the work, and measure the area. Then you get a written estimate for the job before you agree to anything. We are open every day of the week, from early morning into the evening.