Just one defect emerged in the Park City house over the winter. About half of the main roof drains onto the front awning and then onto the paver terrace. A lot of water hits that terrace, and much of it drains down through the terrace instead of running off the front edge. As a result, the pavers settled a lot over the winter. One of the architects had suggested the possibility of inserting a 12″ c-channel into the paver surface to serve as a gutter from the point where the water hits the terrace to the edge. I wasn’t wild about introducing a 2-3″ groove in the terrace, as I thought it would be a trip hazard. Instead I designed a nifty welded gutter assembly with a slightly sloped top surface which feeds a 3″ c-channel beneath it to drain off the terrace. Hard to explain, but hopefully the pictures are clear.

I re-laid the pavers in the areas where the terrace had settled. This time I used polymeric sand to fill the joints. (As best I can tell, polymeric sand is a mixture of fine sand and a water-curing glue…it feels like Elmer’s glue and sand when wet, but sets up to seal the joints. It seems to work fairly well. It may be belts-and-suspenders…we’ll know next spring.)