Crazy paving Perth
Crazy paving in Perth is built rather than laid, and it is mostly pool surrounds and courtyards. Every piece is cut to the two or three it touches on the day, which is why the labour and not the stone is what you are paying for.
- Cut and fitted on site, piece to piece
- Grouted joints, never sanded
- The right answer for a freeform pool
Get a price for crazy paving
A photo of the area and a rough size is enough to price it.
Cut on site, fitted piece by piece
Crazy paving arrives as irregular flat stone in random shapes and mixed sizes, and none of it fits anything until we cut it to fit. That's the job.
We lay it wet on a full mortar bed, working out from the pool edge or the most visible line, cutting each piece to the two or three it touches and holding the joint width steady as we go. An even joint is what makes crazy paving look designed rather than assembled.
Then we grout the joints rather than sanding them. On an irregular joint there's nothing holding sand in, so grout is what keeps the surface together.
Where crazy paving works best
It's the most forgiving surface we lay on an awkward shape, and it takes the most care on a plain rectangle, which is the opposite of what most people expect.
Curved and irregular pool surrounds
A kidney or freeform pool is where crazy paving really comes into its own. There's no straight course to hold and no cut that looks out of place, so the shape of the pool becomes part of the design.
Courtyards with odd corners
Older Perth homes rarely have a square outdoor space. Crazy paving takes a wall that's out of parallel in its stride, where a rectangular paver would show the taper down one edge.
Where you want texture rather than a pattern
Textured stone in a random layout feels like a garden surface rather than a floor. Next to a lot of planting or an older brick house it sits beautifully.
Underfoot, rather than under a car
Crazy paving is a foot-traffic surface. The pieces vary in thickness and the smaller ones carry very little area, so we'd point you at a driveway paver for anywhere a car goes and lay crazy paving everywhere else.
Why it costs what it costs
Crazy paving is the one surface we lay where the stone is the cheap part and the labour is most of it. It takes two to three times as long to lay as a cut paver.
Every piece gets cut twice. Once roughly, to get it near its place, and once properly, to the pieces it actually meets. A square metre of crazy paving can be twenty cuts, where a square metre of 600 by 600 porcelain is sometimes none.
There's a sorting stage before any of it, too. We lay the stone out and read it first, so the big pieces land in the open areas and the smaller ones go where the runs get tight. That's what keeps the sizes spread evenly across the finished surface.
What moves a crazy paving price
Because the labour is nearly all of it, the shape of your area matters more than its size.
How much edge there is
A freeform pool surround with a long curved edge takes far more cutting per metre than an open courtyard of the same area, and cutting is most of the work here.
Steps, returns and narrow runs
Every step, garden edge and narrow strip is another set of cuts to fit, so a plain rectangle costs less per metre than a shape with a lot of corners in it.
The stone you choose
Toodyay, quartzite, bluestone and slate sit at quite different prices, and we'll show you the difference before you pick.
What's there now
Lifting an old surface and carting it away is priced separately from laying the new one, and on a bonded old slab it's a real part of the job.
Looking after crazy paving
Crazy paving is low maintenance once it's in. These are the things worth knowing, and most of them are settled on the day it's laid.
- Keep the joints grouted. Grout is what holds an irregular surface together, so if a section ever opens up, have it made good rather than topped with sand.
- Ask to see a sample laid out before the job starts. Joint width is what makes crazy paving look considered, and it's worth agreeing on it early.
- Give the perimeter some thought. Where the paving meets a wall, a step or a lawn, that line gets cut deliberately, and it's one of the things that makes the finished surface look complete.
- Sweep it and hose it. That's genuinely most of the upkeep. A stiff broom and water keeps a textured stone looking right.
- Use a pH neutral cleaner on limestone and Toodyay stone. Anything acidic will etch the surface, and that doesn't come back.
Frequently asked questions about crazy paving
The other materials we lay
Send us the area and we will price it in crazy paving
A photo of the area and a rough size is enough. If we think another material would serve you better we will say so, and say why.