Dear Willie,

Several years ago, I added a family room to the back of my home and completely re‐landscaped my back yard. The project got larger than planned and my budget was being stretched when it came time to install a 500 square foot paver patio. I got several bids and one of them was almost half the cost of the others. While the low bidder only had limited experience in setting pavers, he seemed like a nice person and his price fit my budgeted.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the low bidder did not know what he was doing when it came to installing pavers. Three years later, pavers had raised and sunk so much that the surface was so uneven that it was hard to place tables and chairs on the patio for parties and an area around a drain was becoming a trip hazard. The original installer could not be found and appears to have gone out of business. Hiring a nice person was not enough to ensure a quality installation of the paver patio and did not take the place of experience.

Again, I called around to get bids to rebuild the patio. Now with more experience, I could tell that some installers did not know what they were doing. Other installers wanted an open check book to fix the problem because they did not know what they were facing. Willie, you were the only one that took the time to remove a section of pavers and dig down to determine why pavers were sinking. Instead of
compacted road base, we found a eight to ten inch layer of sand on top of a four to six inch layer of sand and gravel—materials that will not compact—with useless stabilizing fabric in between and below layers. The original installation detail seems to indicate good intent, but incorrect methodology left me with a floating sea of sand below my pavers that shifted and sunk each time it was saturated with water.

Eschenfelder Landscaping provided me a detailed bid, a guaranteed maximum price, and warranties that Eschenfelder Landscaping would not destroy my adjacent grass, concrete, planting beds, fence and sprinklers as they rebuilt my paver patio. To meet these warranties, Eschenfelder Landscaping hauled truck loads of sand and gravel out of my back yard by hand with wheelbarrows and hauled replacement
compactable road base material into my back yard by hand with wheelbarrows to avoid damaging other areas of my yard. The pavers are now back in place and they look better than they did when first installed. My yard was left in excellent condition and your clean up was complete.

I have learned the hard way that there is a right way and wrong way to install pavers. If pavers are not installed correctly, they will have to be redone in a few years and the cost of having them installed will double. Eschenfelder Landscaping is managed professionally and hires quality employees that care about their work. I recommend the work of Eschenfelder Landscaping and you are welcome to give out
my name and phone number as a reference.

Thank you!
Steve Baer