It’s been weighing on our hearts that we could do more to give back to the communities we serve and do so in a way that would rally our team together.
Some brands that we look up to have a charity that they contribute back to, and we think that’s really awesome.
For us, we recognized that each person on our team has a unique story and a charity or cause that has impacted their life, so choosing just one wouldn’t work.
We’re so excited to share with you how our team has come up with a way to learn more about each other and what we’re each passionate about and work together to create raving fans all while giving back to the community for doing so.
Each month we will share a story about a member of our team and the charity they’re passionate about. During that entire month, each time our team works together to create a raving fan and that fan lets us know, Perfect Paver Co will make a $50 donation to that team members charity.
In the month of May, we’re sharing Scott Lammers’ story of how the Ronald McDonald House of Cincinnati has impacted his life.
When Scott’s wife became pregnant, they figured out through an ultrasound that their son, Jack, would be born with a heart defect. They were shocked and had to figure out how to move forward with this information.
So, they decided to take advantage of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital network and were able to be admitted to the Ronald McDonald House of Cincinnati. Instead of having to drive two hours everyday, back and forth while Jack was going to be in the hospital, they were able to stay at the Ronald McDonald House.
They had all sorts of activities there for them to take part in, food, and a room to stay in, all free of charge while they were going through this difficult time. Jack had to have surgery on his heart valves, due to blood not circulating enough to his lungs.
Fortunately, everything was successful and Jack is now like any other 2 year old – happy and full of energy.
Without organizations like the Ronald McDonald House, things like this wouldn’t be possible. We are so excited to be able to give back to the causes and charities that have made an impact on our team members, because they are who make Perfect Paver Co so great.
Ronald McDonald House Donation Update – Halfway Point
Ronald McDonald House – Conclusion
It’s finally here!!!
During the entire month of May, each time our team worked together to create a raving fan and that fan let us know, Perfect Paver Co made a $50 donation to our team member, Scott Lammers’ charity of choice, the Ronald McDonald House.
Well, May came to a close and we gained 48 new raving fans, for a grand total of $2,400 to be donated on behalf of Scott and his son, Jack!
We couldn’t be happier to be able to give back to our team members and to the community.
To our customers, please know that your feedback can make a world of difference.
Check out Scott coming back to the Ronald McDonald House and being able to donate the check himself!
Keep an eye out for the next team member we choose, as part of our We Care Initiative!
Hi, I’m Mark with the Perfect Paver Company and I came out to Jupiter, Florida today to show
you the perfect example of why it’s so important to seal your pavers.
Today, we’re at an outdoor mall area and if you’re from the Jupiter area, you probably know exactly where I’m at. So what I want to show you is, throughout the outdoor area you have these overhangs and the overhangs prevent water from hitting the pavers underneath of them. Obviously outside of the overhangs, the water is able to directly hit the pavers.
So, what’s happening is because they don’t have gutters or downspouts, the water is actually coming off of the overhang and directly hitting the pavers, and it’s expediting and magnifying the impact that rain has on pavers and so protecting your pavers from rain is the number one important reason why you want to seal your pavers.
So, here’s something else; the pavers directly underneath the overhang are exposed to a lot of high volume water and it’s deteriorating the surface of the paver. You’re starting to see a lot of aggregate exposed, which isn’t good.
If you come up over here underneath of the bench area and overhang you don’t see any of the exposed aggregate, which is the white rock coming through. It’s still has all of its original surface intact.
So, the number one reason why you seal your pavers is to prevent rain deterioration, rain damage because it’s inevitable, it will happen on concrete pavers and so I’ll walk around and show you just some places where you can see how the rain is deteriorating the surface of concrete pavers.
So here’s a section where you have these overhangs and if you look directly beneath them where the water hits the paver, it’s a clean line where that water is coming off and it’s deteriorating the surface.
Pavers on my left, not exposing rain, they look beautiful. Pavers on my right, rain makes them look terrible.
Hey come closer, something else I noticed is it’s not just pavers that are affected by rain. Look at this bench exposed to rain – destroyed. It looks much better protected from the rain,
Obviously, the sun plays a huge role as well. You want to protect the Pavers from the sun. The UV rays really go after the color and attacks those, starts drying those out, dulling those out.
Most importantly, if you coat your pavers and protect them from the rain, they will last significantly longer and look significantly better for longer. Mark with Perfect Paver Company, that’s why you should seal your pavers.
Hi, Mark, with the Perfect Paver Company here to answer another frequently asked question. Today’s question is, “Will sealing my pavers, make them look brand new again?”
So, unfortunately in most cases, the answer is no, unless of course your pavers are brand new. So what I want to try to do today is educate you on what you can expect from sealing your pavers. And I want to start by giving you a little education on how a paver is made and what happens as it weathers and how that affects the appearance that you get when you seal your pavers.
How A Paver Is Made
So, the first thing I want to do is explain to you how a paver is made. So when they make a concrete paver, it’s a mixture of aggregates, medium-sized small size, sand, and Portland cement. The Portland cement is the powder. That’s the gray stuff that you see mixed in around all of the rocks. The Portland, cement, and the sand mixed together is where the color lives. So when they made this paver, they mixed all of those ingredients, the sand, the small rocks, and the Portland cement together. Then they mixed it with a color additive; the color additive lives in that Portland cement.
So if you look at the top of a weathered paver, you’ll see that you start to see some of those rocks, the Portland cement has weathered away. And as I mentioned before, all of the color lives in the Portland cement, you can now see the natural color of the rocks. So the more your paver weathers, the more rocks are exposed and the less color containing product is still left in the paver.
Older Paver
So here, I’ve got this paver that’s been sealed on this side, not sealed on this side, and you can see there’s definitely some color enhancement, but it doesn’t look as good as it could look because of the aggregate being exposed in the paver.
The way that a paver weathers is actually by rain. So as rain continues to hit the surface of the paver, it will start to deteriorate the finer material or the Portland cement from the surface of the paver and start to expose those little aggregate pieces. You can actually see this, if you look at your pavers that are maybe under the overhang or under a roof at your front door and compare those to the pavers that are further out in your yard or your driveway.
You’ll notice that you’ll see more exposed aggregate to the pavers that are exposed to rain versus the pavers that aren’t.
Newer Paver
So if you look at a newer paver, you will see that you don’t see any of the exposed aggregate. You’ll notice the before, it’s more of a muted out a look, and then it’s enhanced pretty significantly by being sealed because there’s more of the pigment, more of the Portland cement that contains the pigment left in the surface of the paver. Therefore, you’re going to get more enhancement when we seal it.
Comparison
So side by side, they both been sealed. And as you can, you’re getting more enhancement from the new paver than you would from the older paver, primarily because of the pigment.
Color of Your Paver
So I talked about how the age and how a paver is weathered plays a role and the results that you get from sealing your pavers. The other thing that I want to talk about is the actual color of your paver. So there are a few different color ranges or color options when you get pavers. You can have more vibrant colors like reds, oranges, greens, blues, and you can have more earth-tone color pavers, like tans, grays, and those types of colors.
Typically, when a manufacturer makes a paver in an earth tone color, they’re trying to make it look like nature. So the color isn’t going to be as enhanced, it’s not going to be as vibrant, it’s going to be a little muted out and feel more natural and organic. When you go with reds, oranges, blues, and greens, it’s intention is to be vibrant.
So when you seal a paver that has that vibrant style color, like a red, green, blue, orange, you’re going to get a lot more enhancement, but still needing to factor in the age of the paper because you can see a difference. This is a red paver here on the right and a natural tone paver on the left. You’re getting more enhancement here on the left, but this is a brand new paver. This red one is probably a 20 year old paver.
So color plays a big role as well. Reds, blues, green, oranges; they’re going to get more color enhancement, while earth-tone colors like tans and grays; you’re going to have less color enhancement from those. But that should be expected because you’re hoping for those colors to continue to be more earth tone, natural, organic looking.
How Well Have Your Pavers Been Maintained Throughout Their Life
The third factor in determining how well your papers are going to react to being sealed is how well they’ve been maintained throughout their life.
If it’s an older paver, but it’s always been regularly sealed, then it’s more likely to have less exposed aggregate because the sealer, if it’s kept on a paver will help prevent that deterioration from happening.
Sometimes we get the most difference between the before and after on pavers that have been previously sealed and most importantly pavers that have been previously sealed incorrectly. So when a paver has been sealed incorrectly, the sealer will eventually turn a milky white and hide all of the color like the picture below.
It will appear as if all of the color in the paver has faded away. However, when we come in and strip all of that sealer away, then you get to see what you actually have left in terms of color and that paver and then we reseal it and all of that color comes back to life.
So when you’re looking at a before and after of a job that was sealed previously incorrectly, and it had been sealed a lot, or it’s a newer paver, like the example below, and then it’s been stripped and resealed correctly, it looks very dramatic in the before and after, but we didn’t do anything to that paver other than strip it and reseal it correctly.
So, that’s why you’re seeing the most dramatic difference in those pictures because of the fact that the sealer had turned white and failed, and once that’s removed and sealed correctly, you get a lot of pop or a of enhancement if the paver that we stripped does, in fact look good under the sealer or it’s been well maintained.
So that hopefully gives you a quick rundown on what you can expect by sealing your pavers. Please comment below with any questions that you might like me to answer in my next frequently asked question video.
Hi, I’m mark with the Perfect Paver Company, back with this week’s frequently asked question. Why should you seal your travertine pavers?
What’s Happening?
Trust me you’re not alone if you have travertine pavers, you had them installed, they were beautiful and just a few months after, you see mold, dirt, and maybe even vegetation growing up everywhere. It’s so frustrating because you made the investment in your travertine pavers because it was supposed to look better and now it’s actually making your pool deck or your outdoor space not look as good. So the question all the time that we get is, “why should I seal my travertine pavers?” and that’s a great question.
First Reason
There’s a couple of reasons, the first reason that we suggest you seal your travertine pavers is because travertine is extremely porous. There are a lot of holes, capillaries pores, and those types of things in the travertine and those holes can fill up with moisture and water and stay damp, creating the perfect conditions for things like mold and algae to not only grow and germinate, but thrive and it kind of takes over. You have this beautiful pool deck made of travertine and the next thing you know, you have all this black mold and it’s just dingy and dull.
So, by sealing travertine with the proper sealer, a nice penetrating version of sealer, it’s going to minimize water’s ability to soak into that stone and therefore the stone is going to stay dry under the sealer and it’s gonna make it harder for things like mold, algae, and mildew and those types of things to grow.
Now, just sealing it by itself won’t completely eliminate the problem, but the other cool thing that it’s going to do is it’s gonna make it easier for you to also keep it clean, get that organic material off the surface of the stone. By getting that organic material off, those microscopic spores of mold and algae that’s trying to germinate won’t have any food to be able to derive.
Second Reason
So, the other reason why we suggest sealing your travertine pavers, especially in a Florida climate, is if you’re around a pool deck that’s a salt water pool. If you’re near the water, there’s a lot of salt in the air and travertine is actually a form of limestone. Limestone is very sensitive to salt.
What We Do To Solve The Problem
So we utilize a sealer that acts as a salt barrier that prevents salts ability to deteriorate the stone or deteriorate that limestone. It will actually eat it if it’s left unprotected, so seal your travertine because it makes it easier to maintain it, it can make it look better depending on which style of sealer that you go with, and it’ll help protect it against deterioration from salt.
Hope that answers all your questions about why you should seal travertine pavers and if you would, leave me a comment below and let me know what you’d like me to answer in next week’s frequently asked question.
Thanks again, Mark with Perfect Paver Company. Hope you have a great day.
Hi, I’m Mark with The Perfect Paver Company, here to answer this week’s question of the week, why do some pavers turn white after being sealed?
So there are two types of sealers. There are breathable sealers and there are non-breathable sealers.
Breathable sealers allow ground moisture to perculate up through the paver and back down through the paver without trapping that process from happening. Non-breathable sealers do the opposite.
So, when you have a non-breathable sealer, you’re essentially trapping ground moisture underneath the sealer and you can develop things like hydrostatic pressure which basically builds up a pressure strong enough to start to lift the coating from the paver and then that space inbetween the paver and the coating fills up with moisture and you basically see condensation and that gives off that white appearance. So, it’s really important to seal your pavers with a breathable sealer.
So, the other reason why pavers can turn white after being sealed is not related to the sealer as much as it’s related to what’s called efflorescence. So, in pavers, there are natural salts. Primarily pavers made from concrete, there are natural salts. We refer to them as efflorescence. When ground moisture or when rain goes down into the paver, those natural salts in the paver stick to that moisture and then when it evaporates back up through the paver, it takes the efflorescence with it and it leaves it on the surface as the moisture evaporates away.
When you have sealers that are not breathable, it can trap that efflorescence in underneath of the sealer. Now, it’s still likely that if you’re experiencing efflorescence, you’re still going to see that regardless of whether or not you have a breathable or non-breathable sealer, but you’re going to see less of it when you have a breathable sealer.
In addition to that, when your pavers are installed over top of a concrete base, there’s nowhere for that water to go when the water drains down through the paver, and hits the concrete base. It kind of get stuck there. So, what happens is the natural salt stick to the moisture in the concrete base as well and it pulls that salt up through the paver and leaves a deposit on the surface.
So, if you have poor drainage, if you have pavers installed on concrete base and you’re seeing white on your pavers in those areas, it’s likely efflorescence and it’s being magnified by drainage issues.
So, I hope that answered your question as to why pavers can turn white when they’ve been sealed and by the way, if you have a question that you would like answered in a future question of the week, please comment below and I would be happy to do so. Thanks again and have a great day!
Hi, I’m Mark with the Perfect Paver Company here again with this week’s question of the week and this week, I’m gonna answer, what is polymer and why do your pavers need it?
So in between interlocking pavers is a joint and during installation that joint gets installed with sand. A product that came out on the market, and in about the last five to seven years is called polymeric sand. What that is, is a mixture of natural sand and polymers or plastic. They mix those together in the manufacturing process and when it’s installed in the joint and you activate it with water, it activates the polymers, the polymers bind to the sand and when it dries it cures into a hard grout like material.
So the purpose of installing the polymeric sand in the joint is to help keep the pavers locked together, but it also helps keep the joint filled with the material that stays locked in the place. Before polymeric sand, you would install just natural loose sand in the joint and over time as rain and frequent cleanings would happen, that loose sand would get washed out, causing a void and that void would fill up with organic material, dirt, and other unwanted things.
So polymeric sand goes in the joint during installation or during restoration when you’re cleaning the pavers up. It locks itself into place and makes it so that it can’t fill up with organic material like dirt and debris, and one of the benefits of it is because your pavers are now easier to maintain because the joints filled with locked sand, it’s more difficult for things like weeds and vegetation to grow on the joint because it doesn’t have that organic material in the joints. So that’s polymeric sand in a nutshell. I hope that answers your question and by the way if you guys would comment below with the question that you might have about pavers, I’ll be happy to answer that in an upcoming segment of frequently asked questions. Thanks and have a great day!
Hi I’m Mark with the Perfect Paver Company back again to answer today’s question of the week. How many coats of sealer do you apply?
So when it comes to sealing pavers more is not always better. I know that’s the case when you’re painting your house or painting walls inside of your house, you really want to get good coverage, not always the case with paver sealer. We utilize a penetrating sealer, which means that the sealer is going to soak down into the paver, and its goal is to coat the individual particles that make up the paver and not put a roof over top of the paver.
The more sealer that you apply to the paver, the more of a roof effect you’re going to get and the less breathable that paver is. So there’s a lot of ground moisture, water is underneath the paver, it needs to be able to evaporate up through the paver and move freely. If you have a roof over top of the pavers, you’re going to prevent that from being able to happen.
The other thing that can happen when you over apply sealer is, again back to the roof. You’re trapping in moisture, and it’s going to build up what’s called Hydrostatic Pressure, and it’s going to start pushing on that roof until eventually it pops loose and detaches from the surface of the paver.
So we’re really good at putting just enough sealer on our pavers not too much, not too little. A lot of times, there are companies who utilize a two part sealer and so the sealer actually comes to them and Part A, Part B when it arrives on the job site, the applicator will mix the Part A and Part B together and add water.
We actually have our sealer pre-mixed for consistency. So when we when we show up to the job, it’s the same product being applied every time. What happens with the Part A, Part B being mixed with water on the site, your first batch maybe has too much water, your second batch has not enough water. The other thing that’s going on is the first coat that they typically will put down is a heavily watered down version. So the purpose of that is to get that sealer is so deep down in the paver and then they come back over it with a second coat where they’re using a little bit less water.
At the end of the day, it’s the same amount of solids that’s being put on the paper. And that’s what’s important that you’re getting good protection of the paver, you’re coating the individual particles of the paver, it’s breathable, allowing the moisture to go up and down through the paver. You’re not trapping that in and it’s going to wear nice and consistently because you haven’t over applied sealer.
I hope that answers your question. We apply just enough sealer and rarely do we apply two coats, but in the event that we feel it is needed to get that great coverage on the particles, that’s what we do!
Hey, it’s Mark with the Perfect Paver Company. Today, I wanted to kick off our first question of the week talking about weeds.
That’s right, weeds, mold, any type of vegetation in your pavers, it’s never a good thing. So I wanted to just take a minute to explain why do you have weeds, what’s causing them, and what can be done to prevent them or minimize them.
It’s important to understand that weeds and vegetation happens because of site conditions. And there are a few different site conditions that can be taken into consideration that can prevent or cause weeds and mold and those types of things to grow and germinate.
Issue #1
The first one is going to be sun exposure. If you have an outdoor space that has a tremendous amount of shade, doesn’t get a lot of sun exposure, you’re going to be more prone to have things like mold and algae and those types of things grow. Also as a result of not having much sun exposure, you’re going to have a lot of shade, and things are gonna stay damp longer. Vegetation, weeds, all of those things require moisture to thrive, germinate, and grow. So the first condition is too much shade or not enough sun exposure.
Issue #2
The second component is adequate drainage. When an installer installs pavers, we suggest that you have a minimum of one quarter inch slope per foot of paver per foot of area of patio. So if you have a 10 foot wide patio it should slope two and a half inches. So when you don’t have that much slope, it decreases the ability for the water to channel off the surface, it should be channeling off the surface into a into a drain or off the edge of the patio into the landscape. When that’s not happening, the pavers retain the moisture of the sand, and the joints retains the moisture in the setting bed underneath of the pavers. Again, you’re creating the perfect conditions for weeds to germinate and grow.
Issue #3
The third condition is lack of maintenance. When pavers are installed, the installer will fill up the joints with a sand material. Over time that sand can settle, wash out, and that joint starts to fill up with organic material. Airborne dust, debris, mulch, leaf clippings, grass clippings, all of those things find their way into the joint, deposit into the joint and turn into compost. That creates the perfect conditions for weeds to germinate and algae and mold and those types of things to germinate and thrive.
Balance
So, there’s this three way scale, so to speak, between the adequate sun exposure between the adequate drainage and the adequate maintenance. What I mean by a three way scale is if you have less sun exposure, you’re going to require that your pavers have more drainage capabilities built in and more maintenance. If you have bad drainage, the drainage component comes down, and it’s going to require that you have more sun exposure and more maintenance.
What We Can Do
So a lot of people think when they contact us and they have their pavers sealed and the joints are hardened, that that solves all of their problems, and they’re not going to have weeds anymore. Now, the only component that sealing your pavers and the only sight condition that sealing your pavers will solve, is the maintenance component. It can make your pavers easier to maintain, but it’s not going to take the place of proper sun exposure and proper drainage. So when we come in, we’re going to thoroughly steam clean all of the pavers, we’re going to clean out all of that organic material between the joints. Then we’re going to install back a polymeric sand into the joint that gets hard to stabilize in place. So when you’re doing regular maintenance on the pavers, and you’re not washing out that sand, you’re preventing that the organic material from building building up. Once that’s done, if you have poor drainage and not enough sun exposure, you’re just going to need to do your maintenance more frequently. It’s the maintenance that you do on your pavers that prevents the weeds and the mold and the algae from growing, and not the hardening of the sand or the ceiling component by itself that’s capable of doing that.
So I hope that answers all of your questions as to why you have weeds and vegetation and mold and algae growing in and on your pavers, and what can be done to prevent those things. So again, I’m Mark with Perfect Paver Company. Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll see you next week!
We’re asked this question frequently and it’s likely because we have multiple locations throughout Ohio and Florida. The answer is, no, we are not a franchise.
All of our locations are owned and managed by the same owners, Mark and Katie Rhodus. We’re obsessed with finding great people to join our team, and when we do, we build positions around them and their strengths, no matter where their geographical location is. This is what has led us to open new territories.
We’re also focused on processes that work. We’ve developed techniques and processes that are consistent across all of our locations. We have very successful training programs in place that allow us to grow.
Our current locations serve Ohio and Florida, but we have our eye on other locations like Indianapolis, Texas, Atlanta, Chicago, and many others. If you have paver sealing or paver installation experience and you are interested in learning more about joining the Perfect Paver Co team, please contact us today. We would love to hear from you.
(937) 306-7613
