When you’re looking for a hard surface outside, be that a patio or walkway, there are a few things to consider when selecting your materials. Whatever the nature of your project, you want something sturdy, low maintenance and aesthetically pleasing. That leaves you with two real options to weigh out: concrete vs pavers.
Naturally, each has its pros and cons when it comes to creating your ideal outdoor space, so let’s get into it:
Overview: Concrete Vs Pavers
In the context of creating a patio or walkway, both concrete and pavers serve the same purpose. They provide a solid, hard-wearing surface. They do have slightly different qualities which are worth exploring.
Concrete:
Concrete is the ubiquitous building material. Wherever you look, you’ll find this material in all kinds of permutations and configurations. It’s made from a mixture of sand (or other aggregates), water and cement and offers phenomenal strength, versatility and longevity.
Today we’re really talking about concrete in its poured form. This involves mixing up a large batch and then pouring it into the shape desired, creating a solid slab to form your path or patio.
We’ve been using concrete in basically it’s modern form since at least the days of ancient Rome, but the history goes back even further. The earliest concrete-like structures that we’ve found date back to the Nabataea kingdom, around 6500 BC. If that doesn’t speak to its longevity, nothing will!
Pavers
Pavers are small blocks which could be made from concrete, brick or stone. They can be laid in patterns, offering a fantastic level of aesthetic customization.
Thanks to the individual nature of each paver being laid separately, you can work really quite complex designs into your patio. Mixing up colors, shapes and sizes can result in artistic expressions in your outdoor space.
Durability And Strength
Both options in the concrete vs pavers debate are incredibly hard-wearing and able to take a heavy load without much risk. There is some nuance between them that might impact your choice though:
Concrete
When it comes to compressive strength (that’s resistance to weight placed on it), concrete is hard to beat. We tend to make huge buildings out of it, so your wrought iron garden furniture won’t bother it in the slightest.
Likewise, once it’s fully set, concrete is pretty resistant to shifting and settling. On the odd occasion where it does crack, it’s a fairly straightforward matter to fix it up again.
Modern advancements like fiber reinforcement mean that these intrinsic advantage are further enhanced.
Pavers
Pavers, while individually strong, are laid out as separate elements of a design. This means that they’re much more prone to movement, cracking and the joints can allow weed growth.
If the ground isn’t perfectly level, you can end up with a bumpy patio. Each of these bumps could represent a weak spot where the effects of wear and tear will be more pronounced.
Maintenance And Lifespan
With the proper maintenance, there’s no reason that either side of the concrete vs pavers argument shouldn’t last a lifetime. While both will require a bit of looking after, there’s certainly more work in maintaining a paver-laid surface than a solid slab.
Concrete
Poured concrete has a few major advantages when it comes to the maintenance cycle:
- Easy to clean: a yard-brush and some water will remove most things. Getting rid of moss and algae isn’t much harder.
- A solid surface makes poured concrete resistant to weeds and pests: Without gaps for them to grow in, they simply can’t get established.
On the downside:
- Regular freeze/thaw cycles will create cracks and pits
- This will require resurfacing and sealing every few years
Pavers
Pavers are more labor-intense to maintain. As each block is effectively a separate piece, this allows a few notable problems that you’ll have to keep on top of:
- Movement: this means you’ll need to re-level your patio or path every so often
- Weed growth: gaps between the blocks allow space for weeds to get hold.
One positive aspect of maintaining a paver-laid space is that you can relatively easily remove a damaged block and replace it without having to worry about pulling up or re-surfacing the whole thing.
Cost Considerations
With any home improvement project, cost is going to be a factor. Choosing concrete vs pavers for your outdoor surfaces is no exception.
Concrete
If you’re looking to pave over a larger area, concrete probably has the edge. It’s not an expensive material and requires minimal labor costs (in comparison to laying pavers) to install.
There is a balance to be struck between up-front and on-going maintenance costs though. Re-sealing a concrete patio is more expensive than replacing a cracked paver.
Pavers
Pavers take longer to install, meaning more man-hours and more wages to be paid. Each block has to be laid separately and that takes time. The smaller the blocks and the more intricate the design, the more it’s going to set you back.
Just like poured concrete, pavers will require a certain level on on-going expense. While you can probably handle a lot of this yourself (unlike poured concrete) there are some tasks that should be left to the pros.
Aesthetic Options
While you could be forgiven for coming down on the side of pavers for purely aesthetic reasons, concrete has come a long way. Ultimately, which side you favor in the concrete vs pavers debate on looks is a matter of taste, but don’t write off concrete as dull and industrial just yet.
Concrete
The days of dull, gray concrete are long past. Today we have options to make concrete look however we like. Techniques like staining, stamping and textured finishes allow a huge amount of variety in poured concrete surfaces. This allows concrete to mimic high-end materials like stone for a fraction of the cost.
Should you decide that you don’t want the extra expense or bother of employing any of these tricks, a classic, sleek concrete finish looks good beside both modern and traditional architecture.
Pavers
If you want to go for something a little more intricate, pavers might be the best choice. The range of shapes, colors and designs available is frankly astounding, offering you the chance to get really pretty expressive. All that’s required is that the shapes you opt for tessellate reasonably well and your design will look great.
On the downside, movement and wear and tear will mean that pavers age quicker than poured concrete. This often results in your intricate design becoming uneven over time, loosing its vibrancy and becoming inconsistent.
Installation Process
While most of the points above come down to a matter of personal preference, concrete does have the edge in terms of installation. It’s generally quicker, cheaper and easier than putting in pavers. Here’s why:
Concrete
Poured concrete has a few advantages that give it a distinct edge over pavers when it comes to installation:
- Less preparation: Poured concrete is a lot more self-levelling than pavers, meaning that it’s less important to have the perfect surface.
- Less labor intensive installation: Once the space has been cleared and roughly flattened, the whole surface is poured in at once.
The result is a much faster process, cutting your labor costs significantly. The larger the area, the more distinct the savings become too.
Pavers
Unfortunately, pavers are the exact opposite. They require a perfectly level surface and the time and effort to lay the blocks individually. This means more time spent prepping the area and more time spent laying the final surface, meaning more costs for you.
It’s worth highlighting how important getting the preparation right is when laying pavers. Adding a slab or blocks over a bumpy surface will lead to an uneven patio. Over time, pooling water and other wear and tear will make this worse and worse. If you do come down on the side of pavers, it’s worth putting in the work before laying a single block.
Why Concrete Is the Better Choice
While, as a company that deals in pouring concrete, we might be a bit biased, concrete really is the superior choice in most cases. Now- we’re not saying a well done paver patio doesn’t have its charms (it certainly does), and this is always going to be a matter of personal choice. What we’re saying is that concrete wins out in a purely objective head-to-head where taste is removed from the equation.
It’s more durable and requires less frequent maintenance. Most of the maintenance that it does require, you can do yourself with a little elbow-grease. It can be installed quickly and reliably, offering a fantastic installation turn-around time and, thanks to modern techniques, it can be just as aesthetically varied as pavers.
It’s also a lot cheaper to install, which is always going to give it a bit of an edge against other options.
So, when it comes to weighing up concrete vs pavers, we come down on the side of concrete.