The entrance to your home and the area around your garden make an impact on visitors, neighbors, and passers-by. Pavers or concrete will improve the appearance of this area and make it more noticeable. Concrete and pavers are excellent choices for updating your garden or entirely redesigning the look of your driveway. Though pavers and concrete seem to be easy enough, deciding which one to use is not always straightforward. Below, we’ll go over the benefits and drawbacks of both to help you determine which is better; stamped concrete or concrete pavers?
1. Installation
Since a concrete slab is poured, while pavers must be laid individually by hand, pavers are considered more challenging to build than concrete. Both options are almost always recommended to be installed by a professional. If you plan to use the pavers around your landscape or in your greenhouse, you can do the job yourself, but more expansive surface areas should be done professionally.
Concrete slabs are typically poured and then left to dry and cure, which can take several days. It’s ready to use once the region has dried. Excavation, grading the ground, and foundation preparation are all common steps in the installation process. Paver installation is a little more involved, requiring careful preparation, drilling, and grading. The pavers will be laid after that, with polymer sand or some kind of adhesive-like material used to bind the pavers.
2. Maintenance
Although concrete is considered low maintenance, it does crack and stain over time, necessitating slab replacement. Stamped concrete is also simple to clean, requiring only rinsing and washing with dish soap and a scrub brush.
Protective sealants may be applied to the concrete to help block stains, but they must be reapplied regularly to remain effective. Since pavers are not a single slab, they are more challenging to clean than concrete. Weeds are among the most common issues with concrete and pavers because they grow in the gaps and between the pavers.
When laying pavers, polymer sand is often used to help interlock the pavers and increase their longevity. Polymer sand is a granular substance that is poured through cracks and crevices.
3. Durability
Concrete slabs are more susceptible to cracking and splitting significantly if the ground underneath them shifts. Temperature changes may also have an effect on the concrete slab, causing cracks. Pavers do not break easily, but they can become loose over time. When this occurs, it may become a threat, and the individual paver must be replaced. One of the advantages of pavers is that they are four times stronger than a standard concrete slab, meaning they can withstand four times the weight on their surface before cracking. Pavers are more versatile when it comes to durability, mainly when a crack or problem occurs.
If a crack appears in a concrete slab, individual pavers may be replaced, but the whole slab must be replaced. Concrete is a long-lasting material that is a little more difficult to deal with. When it comes to decorating along your driveway or in your yard, pavers are usually the first option.
4. Appearance
Since you can manipulate the pavers and make patterns and come in a range of colors, pavers are typically more visually appealing than concrete slabs 1. Although there aren’t as many patterns and colors available in concrete, you can opt for stamped or decorative concrete, which has a lovely look. Color may be applied to poured concrete, but the color fades quickly and does not look as good as it once did. If you’ve added color to your concrete, you’ll need to reapply it every few years.
5. Repairs
When it comes to pavers, repairs are simple because they can be done on top of or even under the paver in question. In most cases, if a paver has to be replaced, it can be done without having to substitute any of the others or even the pavers in its immediate vicinity. Concrete repairs are more difficult because when the concrete breaks or needs to be repaired under it, the concrete must be removed, and a new slab laid.
6. Safety
When wet, concrete slabs may become slick, mainly if they have been painted or treated with a protective sealant. When the concrete is slick, shoes are unable to grip it, and falls are possible. Slipperiness is less of a problem with pavers than it is with a concrete slab. This is because the pavers are individually mounted, and you can choose pavers with raised edges to aid in grip. When using concrete pavers, you can encounter the same issue, as they can become slippery when wet.