Patio Stone Installation

[bullet280]

Hey all, 1st post! I wish I would have found this board before starting my Garage Build. I grew up in a welding shop as a kid, and you can really never get that out of your blood. I decided to build a small welding shop behind my house.

Anyway, the shop is almost done (24' X 30' X 9' cieling) and I have a side 9' X 7' door going out of the side. I wanted to add a patio out there so my buddy got me some 2' X 3' X 3.5thk Patio stones for free

These things weigh about 300+ lbs each and we unloaded from the trailer by hand. I decided since I have a garden tractor, cherry picker, welder, and some material laying around i would build me a lift.

This is what i came up with;

I had to make some counter weights for the front;

I can just pull the tractor right over the cherry picker frame and bolt right back to its original framework. Here is how it attaches to the tractor;

Here it is in action;

I didn't take pictures of the garage build progress, just too busy I guess. But I will post some pictures later of the final build.

Great Site.....

 

[jmack]

Welcome. Nice pictures and I love the ingenuity of using what you had to construct a lift to install the patio - very clever.

From the one picture it looks like you are just installing the patio over landscape fabric?

I know when I had my patio done, they actually dug out about 4-6" for the entire area (~700 sqft) compacted the soil, laid the fabric, then a few inches of aggregage (crushed stone), compacted that, then a couple inches of sand, compacted that, and then the pavers went on the top. I'm not sure where you live, but in the mid-atlantic we get a lot of freezing and thawing which causes heaving and that's why the ground prep is so important.

 

[bullet280]

From the one picture it looks like you are just installing the patio over landscape fabric?

I know when I had my patio done, they actually dug out about 4-6" for the entire area (~700 sqft) compacted the soil, laid the fabric, then a few inches of aggregage (crushed stone), compacted that, then a couple inches of sand, compacted that, and then the pavers went on the top. I'm not sure where you live, but in the mid-atlantic we get a lot of freezing and thawing which causes heaving and that's why the ground prep is so important.

Good point, I live in Western Kentucky.....Our climate is pretty mild here. I did dig it out (by hand), made a gravel base and there is a french drain running along the opening of the garage door entrance around to the back of the garage. I covered that with plastic where the stone is, I chose not to use sand for fear it would wash out. I get a lot of water in the area of the patio stone, it is hard to tell, but the garage itself sits about 1-2" higher. hopefully the french drain will move the water out of there. So far it looks like it will.

 

[PAToyota]

Lately I've been seeing the HF cherry pickers in various receiver hitches - trucks, swivels in a shop, etc. Seems to be a pretty handy setup!

 

[thdewey]

Brilliant! I love that cherry pick hoist you made. I'd love something like that. If I can find 3.5" pavers that big I might use them for my patio. But, I'd need something like that cherry pick. I'd love to see the garage

 

[JohnK007]

Some pretty ingenious fabricating on that lift Bullet! Well done!! How thick is that stock you used for the counterweights? Those sticks look pretty darn heavy!

 

[bullet280]

Some pretty ingenious fabricating on that lift Bullet! Well done!! How thick is that stock you used for the counterweights? Those sticks look pretty darn heavy!

They are 2" X 3" solid crs.... It was left over from a project I did a couple of years ago.