Michigan Brick Paving Company Gives Tips on DIY Sealing

Hi, Steve Dhondt here from PMS Brick Paving. Here to answer some questions that we receive online. One frequently asked question that we receive generally once a week is, ” I want to seal my brick pavers and I want to do it myself. Do you have any suggestions?”

When you’re going to seal your brick paving project, I’ve been doing sealing for since 1995. We have 3 crews allocated just for maintenance of brick, sand, concrete, and what have you. The preparation of the base,the power washing, the stripping. You need to look at that project, and you need to actually see what’s on there. The problem id that most people use is a cure-and-seal. There’s different products that I can’t say, that they’re telling you, these landscape yards are telling you, are 100% pure acrylic. They’re actually cure-and-seals, and they do haze and turn white. Once a product is applied incorrectly or an improper product is installed, you have to strip it, no matter what because once you apply another coat, it’ll look good for 1, maybe 2 months possibly, and then it begins to fade off and dissipate and turn white. You’ll end up having to strip it.

A lot of guys will tell you, just rub xylene on it, and that’ll bring it back. Again, that’s a temporary fix. You’re just basically moving around a mess. If you’re going to seal, make sure it’s power-washed correctly. Make sure that there’s no existing sealer left on the project. Â The other thing that I would do is make sure for those sand joints, you want to use a nice, clean sand that doesn’t film or dust the paver, and I would always roll my sealer. Reason being is pavers are very coarse. You want to make sure you get good penetration in the paving stone, and for joint stabilization, you want to make sure that sand joint is penetrating it well, so it hardens up. It kills all the bugs and the infestations you may have in your patio, whereas spraying, you’re going to get more of a topical coat. It doesn’t last in the sand joints. You’re really not solidifying your sand joints.