Walks and Paths

Attractive walkways around your home add much to its convenience and beauty.

Precast stone with distinctive texture is made by pouring (in forms) over tightly wrinkled sheets of newspaper. The loose aggregate complements the concrete.

CORRECTLY LOCATED walks and paths direct the traffic to and around your home. They should permit you to walk com­pletely around the house, to and from service areas and from house to garage. Such an arrangement makes living more convenient and housekeeping easier; you don't have to worry about tracking in mud and dirt every time it rains. A good network of paths will protect your landscaping. An inviting trail of stepping stones across a lawn is practically a command not to walk on the grass. Any job you do along these lines adds to the value of your home, and you add to it esthetically and practically at the same time.

Before lifting a shovel, spend an hour or two sketching an out­line of your house and grounds—especially if you have just moved into a brand-new home that lacks any kind of landscaping. Make your sketches to scale; not a difficult job if you employ graph paper available from any stationery store. With a new house some exten­sive long-range planning is in order when laying out walks. You should know where the main patio will be located, the size and site of utility areas, the slab area for the clotheslines and so on.

First consider the traffic patterns in and around the house. The housewife moves from kitchen to laundry to clothesline; from kitchen to utility area. Every member of the family moves from house to patio. There will be traffic from the house to the garage. Consider the access from parking space to front door. Walks and paths will increase the beauty of your home but they must be practical—they're not put there just to be looked at. The best solution is usually a compromise between the direction traffic would take if completely unhindered and the direction you want it to take to make the walkways fit into your landscaping scheme. A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but a walk built along a straight line is not necessarily the most attractive.

Use a level to establish grade between side forms. Always slope the walk away bom the house so surface water will drain away from the foundation.

Edging tool is used to compact concrete for re­sistance to chipping, cracking. With forms removed, soil is backfilled to 1/2 in. below the walk surface.

To be completely functional the width of a walk must be planned to accommodate the number of people who will use it at the same time. A city sidewalk, for ex­ample, should at least be wide enough to accommodate two people walking abreast with enough room left so that a third per­son can pass them. The walk to your front door may deserve this kind of treatment, but not so the other walks around your home. You can compromise in some areas if the most practical width would be too overpowering for the space available. One person can walk comfortably on a walk 18 to 20 in. wide. A convenience path across a lawn should not be too prominent; small stepping stones or a narrow walk is in order here.

Slick surfaces for walks are usually un­desirable, especially for a walk leading to the front door of a house. This type of fin­ish is fine for a floor or patio that will be used for dancing, but such a surface can be dangerous to walk on—even more so during or after a rain. Walks should slope a bit for surface-water drainage but they should not be hills. If you need a walk up a slope, break it up at intervals with a step so that the slope of the "treads" can be kept at a happy minimum.

Loose aggregate makes a fast way of providing a mud-free walkway; a good material for service areas and for temporary use until pouring a walk.

This attractive lawn owes much to "stepping stone" walk. Concrete slabs were cast on the site with heavy divider strips which were later taken out.

Contraction joint is made by cutting with trowel one third thickness of concrete. Wide grooving tool makes an attractive joint, compacts concrete.

While concrete is the most common ma­terial for constructing walks, there are a number of possibilities. Other materials such as brick, flagstone, cement-soil, red-rock (where available) and loose aggre­gates are all suitable for walks and paths and may be more practical for you. Some of these materials are more economical and easier to work with than a concrete mix.

Grading and Drainage

For most walks it's important to consider grading and drainage. Water can creep under a walk and flow to a house founda­tion if the project is so sloped. If the water stays under the walk and you are in an area subject to freezing weather, you have ideal conditions for upheaval and cracking of the concrete.

When you excavate for a walk, remove as little of the solid soil as possible. If for some reason you have to dig deep and then backfill, be sure to wet and tamp solidly. A well-compacted subgrade that has natu­ral drainage does not require a specially prepared subbase. In other areas it's good practice to place a 6-in. layer of gravel, crushed stone or cinders before the pour. Sidewalk forms for poured concrete can be 2x4s. For heavier traffic areas—drive­ways—use 2x6s. Stake forms so they are held firmly in position—the top of the form representing the finish grade of the new walk.

Work with a level and a line to establish high and low points and to determine a suitable slope. Some workers will dig grooves for setting side forms and stakes and then excavate between after all form boards are in. This is a pretty good prac­tice for the amateur since it outlines the work area and, in most cases, minimizes shovel work. Sometimes it's necessary to follow this method if only to keep from up­rooting the adjacent ground as little as possible in an established area, Plan to keep the walk surface at least ½ in. above surrounding grades. If you make the sur­face lower you'll create a natural runway for water.

If disposal of rain water is a problem, it might be practical to install a line of drain tiles under or along one edge of the project. The tiles are placed in a ditch not much larger than the tiles themselves, the tiles covered with loose aggregate and the ditch filled. The ditch, of course, must be sloped and directed toward a natural de­pository such as a street drain. If this or a similar solution is not practical, you can always dig and fill a hole with gravel and direct the water to this "sump." The depth of the sump will depend on the natural drainage conditions of your soil. Hard clay soils will not drain as well as loose, gravelly soils and so will require deeper sumps. You can always run a check by digging the hole and running in a couple inches of water. The length of time it takes for the water to drain away will give some indication of how deep the sump should be.

Poured Concrete Walks

The mix recommended by the Portland Cement Association consists of the follow­ing:
Portland cement       one part
sand two and a quarter parts
gravel.... three parts

The gravel should be well graded in size between 1/4 and 1 in. The recommended mix will produce 41/2 cu. ft. of concrete for each bag of portland cement used. Limit water to 5 gal. per sack of cement unless the sand is unusually wet or dry. Compen­sate accordingly in this case. The correct amount of water will produce a concrete mix that is easy to work and will not seg­regate. If you mix on the job, be sure to mix thoroughly; on large jobs you can rent a small concrete mixer to make the work easier. If you buy truck-delivered ready-mix, specify a maximum 1-in. size aggre­gate and a minimum of six sacks of cement per cubic yard of mix.

Walks don't have to be straight and narrow. The effect at left is of a walk leading to a door, but the installation is perfectly practical as a small, enclosed patio floor. Concrete slabs just large enough to do the job with plenty of space around for interesting landscaping (below). Note the butted brick which forms the main side­walk from the street to house.

Moisten the subgrade before pouring, but be careful not to form puddles. Place the concrete as near to its final position as possible. The concrete should not be over­worked but, at the same time, be sure it forms a solid mass between the forms. Ex­cess working with rake or shovel during the spreading and filling procedure can cause an excess of water and finer particles to rise to the surface. This can lead to sur­face scaling or dusting at a later date.

When the project has permanent divider strips, it will be easier to work by pouring alternate sections, especially if you plan to pour only a part of the job at one time. As each section is filled, use the strike board across the side forms, zigzagging it back and forth as you move it forward. Fill low spots and holes immediately and go over them again with the strike board. Allow the concrete to set before finishing (see section on concrete textures).

Edges and joints can be rounded off with the edging tool except in places where the concrete abuts a permanent structure. Joints at permanent grids can be tooled or left alone as you desire.

 Construct a special strike board as shown below to level a concrete footing to exact depth for brick, flagstone or other material. The other illus­trations show some brick pattern possibilities.

BRICK THICKNESS TYPICAL BRICK LAYOUT FOR WALKS

If you haven't used grids, provide con­traction joints at 5-ft. intervals by using a trowel to cut grooves at least one third of the way through the slab thickness. The grooves should be shaped with an edging tool. Where the concrete abuts a solid wall or object, provide a 1/2-in. expansion joint. This can be done easily by folding over several pieces of tar paper and pouring the concrete directly against it. The paper stays put permanently.

Walks can be designed in the form of precast or cast-in-place concrete slabs. Forms are simple and can be uniform, round or irregular. To construct a curved walk that appears to be made of perfectly matched, precast stones, proceed with the forming as if you were pouring a conven­tional concrete walk. Every 3-4 ft., use a 2x4 as a divider strip. Put these in place with double-headed nails and paint them with heavy oil before the pour. After pour­ing, finishing and curing, remove the nails and pull out the 2x4 dividers. Fill the grooves with soil and, if you wish, plant with grass seed.

Brick is often used to construct attractive walks. The most satisfactory method is to install them permanently with mortar over a concrete footing or subbase, but they can also be laid over well-tamped sand. Brick is easy to work with because it's simple to correct mistakes. If the pat­tern doesn't look exactly right, simply re­move the brick and start over. When the brick is placed, fill the joints with a dry mortar mix and wet the walk down thor­oughly with a garden hose.

Don't forget the "landing strips." These are useful be­tween sidewalk and curb and along driveway so that you can alight from a car without having to squeeze past shrub­bery or walk across front lawn.

Interesting use of striated con­crete, mortared brick, loose aggregate and natural stone (below). Here are areas big enough for sitting and sun­ning, but the impression is of a walk leading to house door.

Don't step on the brick until the mortar joints are set. Brick on sand is more suitable for infor­mal, rustic effects. For straighter lines that will be permanent, it's best to place the brick in mortar over a concrete subbase and fill the joints with a wet mortar that is tooled after a suitable setting time has been allowed to elapse.

You can do without joints by laying the brick solid. In some cases this may be preferable since such a layout can be easier to sweep and keep clean. Any kind of brick-on-sand project requires permanent side forms to keep the brick where it was originally placed. An alternate method is to place the outlining bricks on a small footing and mortar them.

Gravel, dumped on the ground and raked level, will provide a walking surface that remains serviceable for quite a while. It's attractive and functional but weeds will grow through it, the gravel will even­tually sink into the soil, and it does not provide the best walking surface. A more permanent installation of this type can be achieved by first preparing a subbase of cinders or redrock, tamping this firmly and then pouring the loose aggregate. Wooden side forms will contain the gravel, and a layer of roofing paper under it will discourage weeds.

Walk facts (below): Use 4 in. thick concrete for walks, 6 in. for heavy-duty, driveways. Best width is 4-5 feet; 2-3 feet for single file walking. Avoid a slick finish—too slippery when the walk is wet.

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