2 year old house with sunken pavers

Hi all. I am seeking some advice here regarding one of my investment properties which apparently has some problems with its pavers outdoor. Some of these pavers started to crack and sunken, especially the drive way. It seems as if the water flow has wash away all the sand in between the pavers, leaving them unable to support the weight of cars, hence breaking apart and sunken.

I didn't include the outdoor paving with the builder of house, as I found some trader to do it, that including stormwater. I guess he hasn't done a good job with it. But what's the way to fix this? Do I need to have the whole pavers dig out again and excavate down to check the stormwater and repave everything again or can they just fix the sunken parts and relay?

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Another thing is in the interior of the house, one part of the floor board actually curled up. It's so strange as if it's been soaked by water or somewhere is leaking. But the tenant said she hasn't poured any water on it. Well...I guess nobody knows if she really did or did not, but I wouldn't believe it's got to do with the outdoor pavers right?...

How do people fix this floorboard curling up issue. Do they need to relay the whole house or can they just fix the part?

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I think the floor has something to do with the excess rainfall we have been having.Possibly coming in from under the door.
This will need replacing and also check your white at barrier around that area.


The pavers I would just fix individually as that could be a big job if you re-leveled all.
Perhaps you can use sloping concrete for a metre with a drain outside that door way,The pavers you pull up can be used as spares for the broken ones.
 
Some of those pavers have not sunk but they have lifted.

I'll bet there are roots under there, in fact I see evidence of roots in the last paving photo.

Lift them up and pull out the roots, tracing them back to the area outside the paving and chop them off there. Then dig in a root barrier around the paving to stop them coming in again.

These roots could also be travelling in under the floor allowing the water to traverse that way too.
 
Regarding timber floor,I had timber flooring laid a few years ago and it is essential before putting them down that the timbers must be stacked correctly in the home to allow the flooring to climatize itself for about 2 weeks,I would say that this did not happen as they would of laid this asap to finish the home to sell,sometimes it may go back but most times you will have to get the timbers in the affected area pulled up some sanding of the width and then relaid.
Regarding pavers there obviously a lot of water running through their,to fix this now the only option is to lift up refill with sand but once finished a thing I did which worked is once laid spread concrete powder in the joints lightly water and once dried water cannot get under the pavers, hope this helps.
Regards,
Macca446
 
Floor cupping like that is usually caused by thermal or moisture expansion where insufficient gapping has been left at the end of the flooring runs. The boards have nowhere to expand and eventually lift. Given its at the sliding door I would think its due to moisture at that point. This could be humidity in the air or water penetration under the door.
 
As per the fence you do have roots through the area which would cause instability.

Unfortunately part of the instability is that the pavers have now been undermined.

More so the pavers seem to be to high and are causing you water issues inside the house.

I would suggest that you need to pull them all up, lower the whole area and ensure that there is effective drainage then reinstall the pavers with a proper root barrier around the paved area.

One of the reason I believe the area has all the roots is the poor fall across the paved area which encouraged the roots to invade. The fall may even be towards the house which is creating your flooring issue.

Cheers
 
75mm of compacted road base under the pavers (and a dose of weed killer) should have prevented the cracks and the root problem.

A driveway should have a strong base as vehicles are heavy buggers.
 
Thanks guys. Erm... I arranged a couple paving traders to go and check it out sometime this week. I also called the original guy who did this to go back and check it out. I am just wondering what do people usually do when this sort of things happen. Do you go to the original trader and ask him to fix it? Or is it just purely bad luck...find another guy to fix it? I think he would probably want me to pay him to fix it...or smth...
 
As datto said, the pavers should be laid on something substantial (75+ mm of roadbase), my preference is to lay them over concrete. As cars pass over the pavers, the dirt below will settle and form ruts, pavers will also crack as the bearing will have moved.
 
Mate I'm new here I've tried to reply at length but keep getting timed out.

In short I think your soakwell has lifted/ popped the lid.
Remove the lifted pavers from affected area, dig down and locate the soakwell, lift the lid, take a picture.
If it isn't the soakwell, then possibly the piping to it.
It''ll be a messy labour intensive job but you can save a lot of money doing it yourself.

Floorboards probably lack of expansion joint, no evidence of water damage , should be 10mm of each wall to be on safe side.

Floorboards aren't glued so easily fixed.
 
Detailed Explanation.

Remove all the localised problem pavers from the affected area and start digging, you may need to remove some unaffected pavers a few courses back to give yourself some room to manoeuvre.

Start digging, you'll need to pile all the sand and dirt up on the other paving.
The soakwell will be a concrete lid on top of a culvert, lift the lid off, you may need help for this. the lid should be intact and completely sealing the culvert, if not the soakwell will be full of sand anyway and therein lies your problem, all your sand underneath your pavers is constantly falling in there.

Now the internal off the culvert( soakwell ) should be hollowed out to the bottom of the culvert' it should not, I repeat not be chock full of sand/ dirt/ debris to the top of the culvert lid.
If it is, it restricts the effectiveness of the horizontal piping that runs from the downpipe to the lower part of the culvert/ soakwell.

Now if this is the case, then dig all the internal debris/ sand/ dirt out of the culvert right to the bottom, so that the culvert is completely hollow and just the edges are supported by the solid ground underneath.

Note : the soakwell should be dug deep enough so that the piping from the down pipe runs on a nice slop to the soakwell, if it isn't then dig it deeper.

Because I live in Perth and everything is sand, I like to lay a couple of bags of river stones in the bottom of the soakwell, this acts as a buffer/ filter so that during heavy rains, the storm water from the gutters isn't thundering into the sand at a 100 mph, this can cause possible integrity issues with your soakwell.

Replace the lid.

Note: If the lid is intact upon location of the soakwell, and the internal is in adequate condition for drainage, then as you've already dug down this far, the next logical step, would be to check the integrity of the horizontal piping that runs from the downpipe to the soak well......... More digging and careful digging at that, any holes in the piping is going to cause similar localised problems.
When you have addressed all this, you'll need to start putting everything back the way it was, levelling al the sand etc.

You'll need to hire a compactor, screed, steels etc from The Hire Guys or whatever they are called in SA.

Before you start anything, I would check all gutters/ downpipes etc for blockages to remove as many variables as possible before you even begin.
Get a spirit level and take some levels of different areas of the paving, it should always be slowing away from the house or towards the soakwell if it's in an undulating area such as a driveway.

Remember, brick paving isn't a particularly skilful occupation, hence the reason why these sorts of issues are symptomatic of a drop in standards during boom times.
You can get much information regarding how to pave off the Internet or from a cheap book.

Regarding the floorboards, you will probably get away with pulling some boards up and trimming the ones on the wall to allow for the expansion.

If it were me, and I owned the place, regardless of whether it was being rented,
I would pull all the boards up, start again, do it properly and pay the extra and glue it down.

Why people bother floating a floor, I have no idea, they are noise and unnerving for most of people particularly when people wear shoes on them.

Far better to just glue it down.
 
I think soakwells are a WA thing - definitely dont have them where I live.

Google soakwell and everything you find is related to WA.
 
anywhere but wa, its draining to stormwater drains running roughly parallel to sewer
wa sandy soil, excellent drainage, soakwell
everywhere else, clay-ey(?) soil, not so good drainage,storm water dreains to rivers lakes ocean
 
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