Advantages and disadvantages of polymeric sand!

If you are having a paver project installed, or you are installing one yourself, you may be asking… What is polymeric sand and do I need to have this installed on my concrete paver project?

Recently completed, this Tremron’s 3pc Lion’s Bridge paver driveway, has tan polysand installed within the joints. Perfect for any color driveway, tan poly sand will allow your driveway to have an extra layer of durablility for all that constant wear and tear!

Polysand is something that you can choose to use or not use on your paver project. But please make sure that, if you do choose to use poly sand on your pavers, that your installer is skilled and trained on how to apply poly sand correctly.

What is Polymeric Sand?

Advantages and disadvantages!

Polymeric sand is a thin sand that when combined with additives and water forms a binding agent.  Silica is an additive, in the sand that is often used to help lock the fine sand particles together. When activated, poly sand helps to prevent the pavers from shifting and from allowing weeds and moss to grow in between the joints which is a huge benefit for our clients. Another neat positive, is that polysand is available in a multitude of colors, including tan, ivory, grey and black. Even though we use poly sand on our projects, we have found that there are some disadvantages to using it. 

A disadvantage that clients may see to using polysand is that, poly sand is an added cost to your driveway project, and sometimes clients do not see the benefit in spending any additional money on sand. If you choose to add polysand to your project, you are going to be adding an additional $ 0.85 to $ 1.25 per square foot for this application.

A second disadvantage can be that poly sand reduces permeability by keeping the water out. So if permeability is something you're looking for poly  sand in your application might not be a good idea.