This client reached out to us because they had a step and front landing that was sinking. Two steps coming up to their front landing were completely falling apart, their front landing had weeds growing through and lots of sinking areas, and the two front steps were completely falling apart creating a tripping hazard. This is usually caused by poor base preparation and poor compaction of that base.
Once we start tearing it apart we can usually identify what is causing the issue. In this case the previous contractor used stone dust which is a 1/4 inch chip you fines that is easily washed away and holds on to water. We never use this material in our base preparations. It is the waste material that is created by quarries when crushing aggregates. It is sold cheap and installed cheap.
What we offered our client here was to completely tear out the steps and install new steps on new base material while remaining in their budget with the top landing and relaying that. Typically with steps built out of wall block it is more cost effective to just install new steps rather than trying to reuse the existing ones. That is because the labor involved with tearing out the steps and then having to clean the glue off of those steps to be able to read here them cost a lot more and you’re left with the same look that you had before whereas spending a little bit more money will get you a brand new step.
So as you see in the video we completely tear out the steps and we noticed right away that it was prepared on stone dust with some sand on the paver landing. This is definitely going to cause those to settle over time so we completely clear out the stone dust, we compact our remaining material which is our subsoil with a little bit of sand in there, and then we go ahead and lay some non-woven geotextile. This is going to separate our base material from the subsoil. We then prepare our 6 inch base of a gravel that is a 3/4 inch aggregate down to fines and compact it with some moisture in it. That is going to give us a good solid foundation for our steps. We then screed a layer of HPB this is a 1/4 inch clean chip stone that our wall block is going to sit on. We also bury at least 4 inches of wall block below the final grade so that the steps have a solid platform that will not lean forward over time.
We lay our wall blocks level using a rubber mallet and a level creating an outline of our steps. This outline is measured at the distance of the treads of our steps and we know we have two steps that measure 16 inch in depth each minus a 1 inch overhang gives us 30 inches from the foundation to the front of our first step and then we split the difference with the front of our second step. When we install 16 inch tread steps, we usually install the steps at 6-inch rises. This works perfectly with these blocks because they are 6 inches in height and we can install the steps as if they are dependent on one another meaning that they tie together rather than two independent steps. Given the elevation of the front walkway to the top of the porch this gives us three comfortable 6-inch rise steps.
We can then complete cuts to fill out the rest of the rise and with these wall blocks we need to chisel off the faces of the corners to expose that rock face. We then use our natural stone caps to go on top in this case we have a 6 feet onyx black natural stone cap on both levels in that 16-in a solid platform for our feet when we walk up the steps. We also prepared two side steps to make this a pyramid step moving up.
With the bottom two steps we did the exact same thing to 6 inch but we also cut our step caps into the existing natural stone boulders around it giving it a natural look. We also cut the two steps curved to match the curve of the area including the front landing. When we do this with natural stone we also have to chisel the face of the natural stone to match the chiseled appearance of the natural stone.
Once our steps are set we can then pick up the pavers from the front walkway clean them off scrape off one inch of our existing base material to make room for a new one inch leveling layer. We do this because that existing material usually has a lot of organic soils and weeds in it so we want to dispose of that and bring something new and clean to start laying our pavers on.
We screed the area with a slight slope towards those two front steps away from the foundation and towards the walkway. Our elevation is already set because we know we have a 6 inch rise so that marks our top of paver by that step and then we want to match the height of our two steps going towards the walkway. This is why we always set the steps first before starting to lay our pavers.
We then relay our pavers in place, complete any cuts that need to be done, and install our polymeric sand in the joints. This is completed by sweeping it around consolidating it with a compactor with a mat to protect the pavers and that sells that polymeric sand down to the bottom of the joint. Then we leaf blow any remaining dust and sand from the surface followed by a watering of that polymeric sand using a shower setting on a hose to activate it.
With that completed this is our final result of our front walkway and step remodel.
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