High Performance Bedding for Patio

You can get it almost anywhere. I used this stuff last fall when building my patio and it was AWESOME to work with by comparison. There was some discussion on it about 2 months ago. Check out this thread

Anyway - I used it and it's held up fantastic. It's solid, packs well, and best of all it is only one single material you have to work with. I've got a co-worker building a patio now in Hamilton and he came back this weekend raving about how much quicker the job had went then it did on his last home when he used the traditional gravel + sand method. Again, I have a lot of info in the link above, but to answer your question...

HPB (High Performance Bedding) is more of a trademark name. What you're looking for is "3/8" clear pea gravel with no fines" (ie no sand or other fine granular). It looks a lot like limestone screening, but has been washed clean. Call your local aggregate yard and ask what they have. If you call it HPB, chances are they won't have a clue what you're asking for...

I'm doing my patio right now as well, I have 11 yards of this stuff! Cap Brick sells it for $31/yard, which is pretty cheap, not sure about what others charge for it.

I think I paid somewhere in the neighbourhood of $22 /yard if memory serves me correctly. You'd be better off to buy from an aggregate yard, not from the landscape supplier. They get it from the same source, just act as a middle-man and charge you their markup.

thanks guys.. that sounds not too expensive..

i'm doing a 16ft*16ft patio. How many yards will i need.

expedite: i see you're from whitby. did you deal with someone locally?

Chodu wrote:thanks guys.. that sounds not too expensive..

i'm doing a 16ft*16ft patio. How many yards will i need.

expedite: i see you're from whitby. did you deal with someone locally?

Depends how deep you go. A yard of HP bedding covers 100 sq ft, 3 inches deep, so if you went 6 inches, you'd need about 5 yards.

Oops. I paid $32 per yard x 12 yards! So the price you're seeing isn't really jacked up after all...

Yep - that math is good. 256 sq' x 6" would be about 5 yards! 6" is not necessary, but definately a good base. I think the recommended base is 3-6" so I'd order the 5 yards and shoot for a 5" base. Better to have extra than come up short.

If you're in Whitby, try checking out Arnts Lanscape Supply. I think they are the only ones that offer true HPB.

Bullseye wrote:I'm doing my patio right now as well, I have 11 yards of this stuff! Cap Brick sells it for $31/yard, which is pretty cheap, not sure about what others charge for it.

Did that price include delivery?

Genia11 wrote:Did that price include delivery?

No, $49 for delivery. I tried at first to do it in a pick up truck, big mistake. Even a big pick up can only hold 3/4 of a yard, the one I was using could barely handle 1/2 yard. I would have spent more in gas than the delivery charge to do it all.

eXpedite wrote:Yep - that math is good. 256 sq' x 6" would be about 5 yards! 6" is not necessary, but definately a good base. I think the recommended base is 3-6" so I'd order the 5 yards and shoot for a 5" base. Better to have extra than come up short.

If you're in Whitby, try checking out Arnts Lanscape Supply. I think they are the only ones that offer true HPB.

All the pros I talked to said go 6-8" for a patio, the deeper, the better. I definitely do not want to be doing this again, so I went 8" to be sure. I hope it's overkill, but I'm laying on clay, and that's not as good as sand, I'm still worried it's not good enough.

No doubt, a lot of opinions out there, but 3-6" is what's fair for a patio, and 6-12" is closer for a driveway (compacted every 3-4"). Unilock is only one manufacturer, and they suggest 4-6". Check out their PDF . But like you, I cut the difference between patio and driveway. My base is approx 8" on average, but never less than 6".
Also keep in mind, this is the recomended base for the standard gravel/sand base. Never heard if it was different for HPB, but figured it would be the same...

eXpedite wrote:No doubt, a lot of opinions out there, but 3-6" is what's fair for a patio, and 6-12" is closer for a driveway (compacted every 3-4"). Unilock is only one manufacturer, and they suggest 4-6". Check out their PDF . But like you, I cut the difference between patio and driveway. My base is approx 8" on average, but never less than 6".
Also keep in mind, this is the recomended base for the standard gravel/sand base. Never heard if it was different for HPB, but figured it would be the same...

Thanks for the help eXpedite...

eXpedite wrote:No doubt, a lot of opinions out there, but 3-6" is what's fair for a patio, and 6-12" is closer for a driveway (compacted every 3-4"). Unilock is only one manufacturer, and they suggest 4-6". Check out their PDF . But like you, I cut the difference between patio and driveway. My base is approx 8" on average, but never less than 6".
Also keep in mind, this is the recomended base for the standard gravel/sand base. Never heard if it was different for HPB, but figured it would be the same...

See, now I'm still confused about compacting...with the HP, the Unilock guy told me it's already 95% compacted, and doesn't need tamping, so I wasn't going to bother with it. I will tamp after I lay the stones just to be sure, though.

Sorry. My mind is all over the map... NO - you don't have to tamp the HPB because it does compact approx 95% when you lay it. I meant to say, following the UNILOCK directions from the link above - they suggest compacting every 3-4" because they are advising to go the old fashioned route of gravel + sand. If you use HPB you can forgo this step.

Once again, another reason why HPB is superior for the DIY'er. One material, less steps, and less rental costs :-)

Thanks for clarifying. I'm trying really hard to not screw this up!

bumping this

HPB is going to be very expensive for some, the old sand and gravel route might be a cheaper one, as am told by the folks at the stone yard, they also recommend compacting every 2"

eXpedite wrote: ↑Sorry. My mind is all over the map... NO - you don't have to tamp the HPB because it does compact approx 95% when you lay it. I meant to say, following the UNILOCK directions from the link above - they suggest compacting every 3-4" because they are advising to go the old fashioned route of gravel + sand. If you use HPB you can forgo this step.

Once again, another reason why HPB is superior for the DIY'er. One material, less steps, and less rental costs :-)

So which one do people prefer, HPB vs the old gravel and sand for patio installs?

glaswegian wrote: ↑So which one do people prefer, HPB vs the old gravel and sand for patio installs?

As I posted above a year ago, I used HPB. It cost no more than sand and gravel, and so far I'm very happy with it. Nothing has moved on me yet, except a small area where water drains under, which has sunk slightly. No fault of the HPB, at any rate.

I used HPB again this year to do my back patio as well.