Paver Patio Installation in Calgary
Transform your backyard with a professionally installed paver patio engineered for Calgary’s climate. Calgary Landscaping builds beautiful, long-lasting patios using premium materials, proper drainage, and industry-leading base construction.
Why Choose a Paver Stone Patio?
Paver patios offer unmatched durability, design flexibility, and long-term performance in Calgary’s freeze–thaw cycles. Unlike poured concrete, paving stones resist cracking, shifting, and frost heave and damaged stones can be replaced individually, keeping your patio looking like new.
Benefits of Paver Stone Patios
- Long-lasting and crack-resistant
- Ideal for Calgary freeze–thaw cycles
- Endless colours, shapes, and patterns
- Easy to maintain and repair
- Enhances curb appeal and home value
- Works with walkways, borders, and outdoor living features
Design Flexibility
Choose from a wide range of colors, shapes, and patterns including herringbone, basket weave, and linear layouts. Whether modern or rustic, paver stones offer full customization to match your home and outdoor living space.
Low Maintenance High Performance
Paver patios require minimal care. No staining or sealing like wood decks. Just an occasional sweep or rinse with a garden hose. Polymeric sand helps prevent weeds and keeps the patio looking clean all season.
Strong Return On Investment
A professional paver patio adds value to your property by expanding usable living space and delivering long term durability. With low upkeep and exceptional longevity, pavers are a cost effective investment for Calgary backyards.
Our Paver Patio Installation Process
We follow a strict installation method designed for performance, stability, and longevity in Calgary’s climate.
Step 1: Design & Layout Planning
We start with on-site measurements, drainage considerations, access points, paver selection, and layout options including borders, inlays, and pattern orientation.
Step 2: Excavation & Site Preparation
We remove the required depth of soil, dispose of materials, and compact the subgrade to create a stable foundation.
Step 3: Engineered Base Construction
Your patio is built on a road-grade aggregate base — not sand. This provides drainage, prevents shifting, and protects your investment from Calgary’s freeze–thaw cycles.
Step 4: Laying and Cutting Pavers
Pavers are installed using accurate patterns, tight joints, and precision mechanical or hand cutting around edges, borders, and structures.
Step 5: Premium Aluminum Edge Restraints
We use high-strength aluminum edging to lock the patio in place. This prevents spreading, bulging, and separation over time.
Step 6: Jointing Polymer, Compaction & Finishing
Polymeric sand is swept into joints to harden, reduce weeds, and improve stability. The patio is compacted, leveled, and cleaned for a perfect finish.
Most projects are completed in 2 to 3 days, weather permitting.
What Makes Our Paver Patios Last Longer
Our builds exceed typical Calgary landscaping standards. We focus on durability, stability, and freeze–thaw performance to ensure your patio stands the test of time.
Why We Never Use a Sand Base
Sand shifts, holds moisture, and leads to sinking or heaving. We use an engineered aggregate base to prevent movement and drain water effectively.
Slope, Grade & Drainage for Calgary Climate
We design patios with correct slope, water direction, and integration with downspouts to prevent pooling or foundation issues.
Compaction Standards & Equipment
We compact each layer using commercial-grade plate tampers for maximum density and long-term stability.
Engineered Base Options
For challenging soils or larger patios, we offer advanced base systems with geotextile membranes or deeper excavation to ensure unmatched performance.
These components come standard in every Calgary Landscaping paver installation to ensure maximum strength, beauty, and longevity.
Paver Styles, Patterns & Design Options
Create a unique outdoor space that reflects your style. We offer a wide selection of paving stones, layouts, colours, and accent borders.
Elevate the aesthetics and functionality of your outdoor living space
Paver Patio Cost In Calgary
We believe in clear upfront pricing. Below are typical project ranges to help you budget. Paver patio pricing depends on size, excavation depth, site access, and design complexity.
Typical Project Costs:
- Small Patio (120–200 sq ft): 8,000–10,000
- Medium Patio (250–400 sq ft): 11,000–18,500
- Large Patio (500+ sq ft): 19,000–25,500+
What Affects the Price:
- Paver choice and pattern complexity
- Site access and grading requirements
- Add on features such as fire pits & lighting
Why Homeowners Choose Calgary Landscaping
With more than 23 years of landscape construction experience, Calgary Landscaping delivers exceptional craftsmanship and high detail installations backed by trusted service. We take pride in delivering long lasting outdoor spaces built to the highest standards.
Homeowners Choose Us Because:
Experience and Professionalism
22+ years of landscape construction experience
Licensed, insured, and WCB compliant
Premium equipment and skilled crews
Professional site management
Quality and Client Satisfaction
- 5 star Google rated
- Clean and organized worksites
- Honest pricing and transparent
- Consistent long lasting, high quality results
What We Build For Calgary Homeowners
We design and install high quality paver patios, walkways, sitting areas, fire pit pads, front entry upgrades, and complete hardscape layouts that elevate the look and function of your yard.
Every Installation Includes:
Excavation and proper site preparation
Engineered aggregate or permeable base
Professional grading and drainage setup
Paving stone layout, cuts, and compaction
Aluminum edge restraint for long term stability
Polymeric jointing material for clean, weed-resistant joints
Optional borders, inlays, patterns, and sealing
Full jobsite cleanup and disposal
Your project is managed from start to finish with precision, communication, and exceptional craftsmanship.
WE BUILD TO A HIGHER STANDARD
Paver Patio Deep Dive
Explore these deep dive sections to learn exactly how we build our paver patios and why our installation methods deliver superior long term performance for homeowners.
Installation Basics
Base Construction
A strong paver patio begins with a strong base, and base construction is the most important step for long term durability in Calgary’s freeze thaw climate. Our approach goes far beyond basic landscape practices by excavating to a depth that ensures stability and prevents future movement. We remove all soft, organic, or unstable material until we reach firm, compactable subsoil. This step alone eliminates most of the settlement problems homeowners experience with cheaper installations.
Once excavated, we install a multilayer engineered base using high quality road crush or permeable aggregate (depending on your yard’s drainage needs). Each layer is installed in lifts and compacted with commercial plate tampers to achieve maximum density and load-bearing strength. This creates a base foundation that drains water effectively, resists frost heave, supports heavy furniture and foot traffic, and maintains level surface integrity through decades of Calgary winters.
This deep engineering approach is one of the biggest reasons our patios consistently outperform sand-base or shallow installs done by budget contractors or DIY methods.
Why We Don’t Use a Sand Base
Many low-cost or DIY patio installations rely on a thin layer of sand as the foundation under the pavers. While this may work in warmer climates, sand bases fail quickly in Calgary because sand holds moisture. When saturated sand freezes, it expands and pushes your pavers upward. When it thaws, the sand loosens and settles unevenly.
This constant cycle causes sinking, high spots, trip hazards, and significant long-term maintenance issues.
Our installations completely avoid sand bases. Instead, we build patios using an engineered permeable or crushed aggregate base, designed to shed water instead of hold it. This eliminates the biggest cause of paver movement, frost heave, and weed growth.
Homeowners often choose us specifically because their previous patio (or a neighbor’s patio) shifted due to sand. By eliminating sand and using modern industry best practices, we guarantee a much stronger, longer-lasting paver patio.
Slope, Grade, and Drainage Explained
Proper slope and drainage are essential to building a patio in Calgary’s climate. Too little slope leads to pooling water, which creates ice in the winter and algae buildup in summer. Too much slope makes the patio uncomfortable to use, causes furniture wobble, and can direct water toward your home’s foundation.
We engineer every patio with a precise slope typically around 1 to 2 percent to ensure water flows away from your home and into safe drainage areas such as lawn, garden beds, or permeable zones. Before we build, we assess natural grade, existing drainage paths, soil types, and any nearby structures. For problem yards, we can also incorporate drainage channels, French drains, perforated pipe, permeable base, or dry stream beds to manage water movement.
Many patios fail because slope wasn’t considered from the start. Our team ensures your patio not only stays level and beautiful, but also improves the drainage of your entire yard.
Edge Restraints and Why They Matter
Edge restraint is one of the most overlooked components of paver patio installation, yet it plays a major role in structural stability. Without proper edging, pavers slowly “creep” outward over time due to foot traffic, shifting soil, freeze thaw cycles, and gravity. This creates spreading gaps, wobbly stones, and a distorted patio shape.
We use premium aluminum edge restraint rather than cheap plastic edging. Aluminum edging is rigid, corrosion-resistant, UV-stable, and remains perfectly straight or curved depending on design needs. It is fastened securely using long galvanized spikes that anchor the edging into the compacted base material. This ensures a clean, crisp border that holds the entire patio tightly together.
Aluminum edging is a hallmark of high-end installations and is a major reason our patios remain structurally tight and visually sharp even after many years.
Compaction Standards and Equipment
Proper compaction is the core of professional patio construction. Without dense, stable base layers, even high-quality pavers will shift, settle, or loosen over time. Calgary’s clay-heavy soils and freeze thaw cycles make compaction even more critical.
Our team uses commercial plate compactors capable of delivering thousands of pounds of force per square foot to compress each layer of the base. We compact in multiple passes and lift stages to ensure uniform density. After the base is complete, we also compact the pavers themselves with a protective mat to set the stones tightly into the bedding layer.
Cheap or DIY compactors simply don’t generate enough force to create a long-lasting patio. This is why you’ll often see dips, humps, or “spongy” sections in poorly built patios. Our equipment and compaction standards ensure exceptional durability and load-bearing performance for decades.
Engineered Paver Base
As the newest base preparation technology, Alliance has developed polypropylene tiles that are added before paving stones are installed. It distributes point loads by spreading out the area paving stone rests on. This limits the chance of shifting on the compacted base aggregates.
The tiles also offer a thermal break between precast materials that reduce freeze thaw cycles your Calgary paving stone patio will have to endure. We have found the best performance is achieved in combination with our aggregate base preparation.
If you existing concrete is cracked but still in relatively good condition the tiles can be used to install paving stone over your existing concrete.
With longer paving stones we suggest using beautiful herringbone patterns to enhance your finished paver stone patio.
Paver Installation Methods in Calgary
Calgary Weather
Paving stone patio installation has evolved to meet the unique challenges of Calgary’s changing seasons. While Chinooks bring welcome warmth, the constant freeze-thaw cycles can wreak havoc on traditional paving methods. After years of witnessing the failures of traditional sand-based paving stone patios, we knew there had to be a better solution. Our goal was to create patios that not only look stunning but also stand the test of time in Calgary.
The Problem with Traditional Methods
In the past, patios were installed using a base layer of paving sand, followed by paver stones and a final layer of 5mm sand to fill the joints. However, this approach often fails in Calgary’s climate. Freeze-thaw cycles, water runoff, ants, and weeds can cause significant damage, even to interlocking paving stones.
Our Proven Solution
We’ve developed and rigorously tested a superior paving stone installation method that eliminates the need for sand altogether. Instead, we use high-quality aggregates for the base, which prevent erosion, resist ants, and block weed growth.
For added durability, we also offer an optional engineered base designed to provide extra stability and protection against Calgary’s freeze-thaw cycles.
Built to Last
Our innovative approach ensures your paving stone patio remains beautiful and functional for years to come.
Design & Material Choices
Joint Stabilization and Weed Prevention
The joints between your pavers are more important than most people realize. They lock the stones together, add lateral strength, and protect the patio from weeds, ants, and erosion. We install premium polymeric jointing sand, which hardens when activated with water to form a strong, cohesive joint system.
Polymeric sand does more than fill gaps it creates a barrier that stays in place during heavy rainstorms, power washing, or freeze thaw cycles. It prevents ants from tunneling and dramatically reduces weed growth, helping your patio stay cleaner with less maintenance. Inferior joint sands wash out, crumble, or allow organic material to accumulate, which is why older patios often look messy.
By using only high-grade polymeric products, we maximize the long-term performance and appearance of your patio.
Jointing Polymers
Jointing Polymers Have Changed
Technology for paving stone joint material has also made a huge impact in the longevity and installation of our paving stones and paving slabs. New calibrated jointing polymer binders outperform traditional paving stone sand or polymeric sands used in the past.
This has made paving stone patios and walkways a superior choice in our Calgary climate. The jointing material glues the paver pattern together and blocks water from entering the base layers. When a Chinook arrives your paving stones stay dry, avoiding the freeze and thaw process that created uneven surfaces of old sand based patios.
Paver Styles, Borders, and Patterns
Paver patios offer one of the most diverse design palettes available. We work with an extensive selection of colors, textures, shapes, and stone lines from top manufacturers to match any architectural style. Whether you prefer the modern clean lines of smooth rectangular slabs or the classic charm of tumbled stones, we help you select materials that complement your home and landscape.
We also offer borders, inlays, and custom pattern layouts including herringbone, basket weave, running bond, stacked bond, and modular random patterns. Borders can define spaces, add contrast, or highlight features like fire pits and seating areas.
Great design makes a patio feel intentional and upscale. Our design options help turn functional stonework into a visually stunning outdoor space.
Material and Manufacturer Options
We install pavers from industry-leading suppliers such as Techo Bloc, Barkman and Belgard. These brands produce high-density concrete paving stones engineered for strength, beauty, and freeze thaw performance in Canadian climates. (Listed in order of quality)
Each manufacturer offers a wide range of product lines, including textured slabs, permeable stones, smooth modern pavers, and rustic cobblestone-style options. Many come with manufacturer warranties covering structural integrity, weather resistance, and color retention.
By working with reputable suppliers, we ensure your patio not only looks incredible but also stands up to Calgary winters and years of daily use.
Paver Stone Patio Design
Unlike stamped concrete, paving stone installation using our high quality process will leave you with all of the benefits of a clean crack free surface, without the worry of ants or weeds.
Excavation, on site sub-surface evaluation and base preparation are all part of the paving stone installation. Correct slope, material selection and premium G2 bonding sand are used to ensure your Calgary paving stone patio is built to last and looks amazing for your outdoor living space.
Colours and Sealers
Enhance the look of your new Paving Stone Patio.
High grade sealers and colour enhancers are available for your paving stone patio. The sealer penetrates into the paver stone pores. This reduces the chance of oil and dirt penetration, keeping your pavers looking new year after year.
The acrylic coating further protects your pavers from deicing salt that can corrode the stone over time.
Colour enhancers are available in zero, low & high gloss finishes that bring out the natural stone colours of your paving stones. It is best to test your finish on an extra paving stone before coating your entire patio. This will allow you to see the colour and slip resistance the finish will have.
FAQ - Ask us anything
Hours: Mon-Fri 8:00AM - 5:00PM
Call Us: 403-237-6300
When should I book A meeting?
We would like to meet with you as soon as possible. The Calgary Landscaping season runs from mid-April to November and project space can get booked quickly. It takes time to plan and design a quality landscape, so the sooner we start the better.
Who will I be meeting with?
You will meet with one of the the two owners who will welcome you and ensure that you are given expert advice to start your project off right. They will be your main contact throughout the project planning and design phase. They will also be present on your project site during construction to ensure everything goes smoothly.
What will I need for the meeting?
If you have notes, sketches or photos, we would like to see your ideas. It’s a collaborative effort and we want to align our vision with yours. A copy of your Real Property Report (RPR) also helps, as it shows utility right of ways, overland drainage set backs and measurements for your property.
How long does the meeting take?
In general, a welcome meeting will take 45 – 60 minutes depending of the complexity of the project and the size of your property. If more time is required we will ensure a second project meeting is scheduled. If you feel we need more time, let us know and we will schedule additional time for you.
Why should we choose you to complete our project?
We are the top choice when people search for a professional landscaping company in Calgary. People are searching for a reputable & friendly landscaping company that delivers quality craftsmanship at an affordable cost.
How do we know this? Our clients refer us to friends and family time and time again!
