Paver Patios, Walkways and Stone Steps in Syracuse

Deep enough for your soil, and stated in the quote as inches after compaction. The industry specification's minimum is 4 inches for patios, walkways and pedestrian areas over well-drained soils, 6 inches for a residential driveway, and thicker in colder climates over continually wet or weak soils. Syracuse is a freeze-thaw climate and large parts of this metro map as somewhat poorly to poorly drained, so the well-drained minimum is the wrong starting point for many addresses here. Get the number written down and you have made the single largest hidden difference between two prices visible.

Honestly, both are real answers. Unit paving is a flexible surface: it moves at the joints rather than cracking across a span, and any part of it can be lifted and reset, so a settled corner or a buried utility is a morning's work rather than a demolition. Poured concrete is one continuous piece, it is usually simpler to install, and for a long straight drive it is often the more economical surface per square foot. What it cannot do is come up and go back down. If poured is what you want, get it priced by a flatwork contractor rather than by a hardscape crew.

A little, and the specification expects it to. Pavers may be set 1/8 to 1/4 inch above final elevation to allow for minor settling, and a small amount of settling is described as typical of all flexible surfaces. What separates a patio that settles a fraction from one that opens up is the compaction of the subgrade, the depth of the base and whether water has somewhere to go. Those three items are what you are actually comparing across your quotes.

Not on frozen ground. The hardscape specification states flatly that frozen base material must not be installed and that material must not be placed over a frozen soil subgrade. At Syracuse the normal daily minimum is at or above 40F in exactly six months, May through October, and the median window between the last and first dates at or below 36F is 149 days, May 8 to October 5. That is the genuinely unprotected build season, which is about five months rather than the seven a frost-free reading suggests, and it is why good crews fill up in spring.

Ask your own municipality, because the published lists in this metro do not settle it. The Town of Clay and the Town of Cicero both name fireplaces on their permit lists and neither names a patio. The City of Syracuse names retaining walls, driveways, fences, decks and porches and neither of its lists mentions a patio at grade. The Town of Manlius publishes thresholds for sheds, decks and fences and none for a patio. Silence is not permission, and zoning setbacks usually decide where a patio can sit even where no building permit is needed. In Cicero, also check the trigger for excavating or filling more than 10 cubic yards, which is about a 20 by 20 foot area taken down 8 inches.

No. New York's construction stormwater permit applies to soil disturbance of one acre or more, and one acre is 43,560 square feet, so no residential patio, walkway or driveway comes close. The lower 5,000 and 20,000 square foot thresholds in that permit apply to New York City watersheds and the city's own boundaries rather than to Onondaga County. It is worth knowing so that nobody adds a state stormwater line to your quote, but your local stormwater ordinance is a separate matter.

Statute, if the contract is written the way the statute requires. Section 771(1)(e) requires the contract to notify you that payments taken before completion are to be deposited under subdivision four of section 71-a of the Lien Law, or that the contractor may instead post a bond, a contract of indemnity or an irrevocable letter of credit with you. Ask which of the three applies before you hand money over. Section 771(1)(h) also gives you until midnight of the third business day after signing to cancel in writing, which is enough time to get a second quote read properly.