terracotta pavers on a dry bed

[0hm]

hi all,

i've been lucky enough to come into some terracotta pavers for the back garden. they are octagons, with inbetweeney squares/diamonds. i am looking to lay them on a dry mix on top of the concrete surface you see in the pictures.

a friend suggested to me that it would be suitable to lay them on a grit sand (maybe 2 inch or so, levelled with a whacker). i plan to 'edge' the area in question with red brick, properly set in mortar, to retain the sand & pavers, and prevent the sand washing away into the garden. i will need to be taking them up in a few years, as we plan to extend the kitchen into that area you see in the pictures, so mortar-ing them in is a no-no, as it'll make them permanent, and likely to break if i try and remove them. apparently, also, you're not supposed to mortar in the porous mexican ones like this, as they discolour from the mortar soaking in.

would it do any good (once they have been soaked for a few days, sealed with terracotta sealer, and laid) to brush a dry sand / cement mix into the gaps, just to give them a good hold in the area, but not set them in permanently? has anyone on here ever laid these porous ones outdoors, on a dry bed before? any help / advice would be much appreciated.

here's a few more pictures to give you a better sense of what we want to achieve.

Untitled

• 0hm
• 5 Mar 2011
• 1

Untitled

• 0hm
• 5 Mar 2011
• 1

Untitled

• 0hm
• 5 Mar 2011
• 1

Untitled

• 0hm
• 5 Mar 2011
• 1

 

[plstering]

solid bed of muck 4/1 mix sharp sand and cement 2" sound ok
leen mix same for the edges use a typ 1 stone base base wacked first 2" will doo if its just people walking on it
point them up with a 5/1 mix leen mix

 

[r896neo]

you can't lay them on sand when it has a concrete base underneath, water will never be able to get away into the ground as with normal block paving and It will create a swamp of the sand underneath them. If you lay them on a semi dry bed of grit sand and cement say 6:1 you will find that they won't bond to it very well. Even less so if you can keep them very dry before laying

This will give you a solid base that will support them so they don't crack but they will barely be adhered to it. Then you could point them with something like sika pave plus which under normal circumstances i'd steer clear of but for your temporary affair it would probably work well for a few years yet still be easy to remove/ clean off.