Having to cut pavers is often what precludes people from tackling a paver project by themselves. Handling a saw is a hard, expensive, and dangerous business that most people choose to shy away from. So how to avoid that and make a curved paver walkway without cutting pavers?
Curved walkways and patios bring can bring an extra dose of refinement to your hardscape project. Choosing to use pavers alone is elegant enough already, but choosing to use them on a curved design can add a whole other level to your project.
However, cutting pavers, especially not in a straight line, is a complicated business. There’s no way around it, it can only be done with the help of a saw, like a masonry or demolition saw.
There is a few other options of saw you can use, some more expensive and dangerous than others. But maybe you don’t feel like wasting money renting one or just don’t want the risk of having to handle them.
Don’t worry. You have options. With a bit of planning, you can design a curved walkway accounting for the curves and use math to avoid having to cut any pavers at all.
In this article, we will give you a simple guide on how to make the right calculations and choose the right pavers to avoid any cuttings along with your project.
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Curved Paver Walkway Without Cutting Pavers – Math is All You Need
It all comes down to math and geometry. And, most of all, to something called curve stitching.
Curve stitching is an optical illusion where you create an image that appears to be curved, but using only straight lines. The same idea can be applied to the design of your curved walkway.
With a little planning, you can use straight pavers at the right angles and create the same illusion.
Curved Paver Walkway – Step by Step
To create that illusion, the first thing you are going to need is a measuring tape. Go outside and measure the area where you want your curved walkway to be, if possible even sketching the walkway on the floor using chalk or something similar.
Once you have the measures, time to come back inside and start working with paper and pen. Draw an outline of your walkway and all its majestic curves.
Now for the fun part. Choose a “point” in your pathway and mark it on the paper. It cannot be too big, but it also shouldn’t be too small, otherwise, you will take a long time to finish the sketch.
For the next step, a few colored pencils will be handy.
Place a ruler into the point you choose on your walkway and move it around a bit to cover as much of the walkway line as you can.
And then, using one of the colored pencils, mark the line.
Notice that a part of the line goes outside your walkway while another part stays inside it. Take the highest point where the line is still inside your walkway and, again with the help of the ruler, draw a straight line from one end of your walkway to the other.
Do the same thing with the lowest line and finish this section by drawing a final straight line linking the lines at the other end of the walkway. You can color the entire section to help you visualize it better.
From this point on, you want to keep doing this process until all your walkway is colored.
It might happen that a single straight line cannot be drawn from the highest to the lowest point of a section.
If that happens, divide the edge into subsequent straight lines.
Finish this section with a different color, and keep going until your entire paver walkway is colored.
How to Use This Drawing?
The drawing will give you an idea of how to place your pavers to create the curved paver walkway without cutting them. And here is an important disclaimer!
The more precise you are with your measures, the better your final product is going to be.
Here we made crude measurements just to set an example. But if you use real measures, translate them into paper using the right scale, and know the dimensions of your pavers beforehand, you can make a way better job.
You can even divide your walkway to make for a more precise sketch. Pretend like you’re “zooming in” on the walkway and divide it into two pieces of paper instead of one.
So, if you calculate really well during the planning phase, your project will be pretty much perfect. You can even draw the pavers themselves on the sketch!
Of Couse, You Can Always Hire Professional Help
If all this math made your head hurt and you don’t really feel like doing all that, you can leave the work for professionals.
They can make all those calculations for you if you really want to have a curved walkway without cutting pavers. Or they can bring professional tools and saws, skip all that and start a curved walkway right away.
The professionals at JS Brick have been providing the highest quality services on paver installation and maintenance around Sarasota for more than 20 years.
If you’re lucky enough to be around, give them a call at +1 941 586 9140 and schedule a visit.
