Paver Sealing & Sanding
Kensington

Kensington Golf & Country Club sits behind a gate at 2700 Pine Ridge Road, between Airport-Pulling and Livingston. Its roughly 565 homes are spread over more than a dozen neighborhoods with English names, from Ashley Grove and Canterbury Greens to Wellington Place and Yorktown, and the paver work changes a good deal from one to the next.

Lake and municipal irrigation both appear in recent Kensington listings. Homes watered from lakes often see brown or orange arcs on unsealed pavers along sprinkler lines.

Coach homes make up four of those neighborhoods. Each building holds two units with garages, so there are two driveway approaches side by side. When one owner seals and the neighbor does not, the color difference is obvious from the street. We can quote a coach building as a pair, so both owners, or the association, can book it together.

Single-family homes and villas fill six neighborhoods, with living areas from about 2,100 to 5,000 square feet, and two more neighborhoods hold estate homes. On those bigger lots, drives, entry courts and pool decks are larger too. Estate drives and motor courts are priced on our large-driveway line rather than the standard one.

Paver areas from around 1999 to 2002 have usually lost joint sand to many storm seasons. Polymeric sand fills those gaps and sets firm, which keeps the pavers from moving.

A Sheffield Villas listing on Kensington High Street shows a common setup: a two-story, tile-roofed block and stucco home with a screened lanai and a balcony above, a heated pool under a screen enclosure, lake and municipal irrigation, and views of the course and a lake. Where a deck is partly under the enclosure roof and partly in sun, we treat the shaded and sunny parts separately when setting cleaning and drying times.

The Robert Trent Jones Jr. course was laid out around a 20-acre natural preserve, with a series of wetland preserves and the course acting as a buffer to the homesites. Where a deck or walk backs onto preserve, shade and leaf drop keep it damp. Wash water is steered away from preserve edges and lakes, and the plantings beside the pavers are wetted before and after cleaning.

Shaded walks and pool decks near preserve grow algae and get slick. Cleaning and sealing with a slip-resistant formula on pool decks makes them safer and easier to maintain.

The jointing material is installed the way its maker specifies. Pavers must be bone dry. Sand is brushed in until the joints are full, a vibrating plate settles it, and the sweep-and-vibrate cycle is repeated, leaving the sand roughly 3 mm under the top edge. In failed joints, old sand is removed at least an inch and a half deep, since the manufacturer rules out ordinary sand underneath with polymeric on top. For coach-home and estate drives we pick a sand rated for cars: the maker names Gator Maxx G2 for driveways and says its Gator Dust and Gator Nitro are not for vehicle traffic.

To activate it, each section is misted with a shower nozzle and kept wet until watering is done. Newer G2 formulas need only that single watering and are rain-safe in about 15 minutes on a drained base, though the general guidance is still 24 hours without rain. The maker ties white haze to damp pavers or high humidity at installation, so lakeside and preserve-side decks are given extra drying time first.

The finish choice is between a natural look and a richer wet look. Wet-look products such as SEK’s SB-6000 deepen color with a thin film, while penetrating silane-siloxane repellents soak in and leave the stone looking unsealed. On pool decks we put traction ahead of gloss. Techniseal notes that a second coat on low-porosity pavers can become slippery, so decks get a single coat of a slip-resistant formula.

Every sealer sets its own wait after sanding. SB-6000 can go on 24 hours after cleaning, sand activation or rain, with air between 40 and 95°F and the paver surface under 120°F. Techniseal’s water-based wet look asks for 30 days after polymeric sand. Either way, sprinklers stay off for a day after sealing, and cars return after 24 hours with SB-6000 or 48 to 72 hours with the Techniseal product.

Our published prices start at $599 for a standard driveway cleaned, sanded and sealed, and $799 for large estate drives or motor courts. Coach-home entries and walks up to 400 square feet start at $399 with sealer, or $349 to clean and re-sand only. A re-sand by itself starts at $199, and sealing a pool deck with a slip-resistant product starts at $499. Association walks are quoted building by building.

Kensington is gated, and we register with the gate through you or your manager before each visit. A certificate of insurance is available, and each job ends with a written record of products and dates. Owners can book tile roof soft washing and pool cage cleaning alongside the pavers.