What is the best way to lay brick pavers on concrete porch

Question

I have a concrete porch which I would is covered and does not get wet during rain/snow. It does not have any drain issues. We don't like the way it looks so we would like to beautify it by laying brick pavers.

I've looked on line for how to lay brick pavers on cement surface but have gotten mixed results.

What is the best way to lay the brick pavers?

Should I:

• Lay & level gravel
• Lay & level paver sand
• Lay & level brick overs
• Cover the holes with polymeric sand
• Edge will be set in mortar
• Wash it up

I'm looking for the easiest and durable way to do this. The above steps seem a lot because the porch is covered and won't be wet in rain.

Answer 1

You would need to mortar them, perhaps thin set (outdoor rated, like Custom FlexBond or Laticrete 254 Platinum)

Have you considered brick veneer? L*wes has thins (.56 thick) with corners available. Brick-It is another.

Stone tiles are another route. Slate or gauged bluestone are nice choices.

Answer 2

As Tester101 points out, the options you describe are mostly the methods used to set pavers on soil. The gravel and sand acts as the base. You already have a base, the concrete, so you'd want to adhere the bricks directly to it.

I imagine you could glue'em and then use polymeric sand in between, but since this is covered and out of the weather, I'd consider going the full mortar route.

That said, note that pavers are meant to be an ALTERNATIVE to concrete rather than an ADDITION to. Adding full pavers is going to introduce a whole variety of other issues...namely the height differential between the first step and the ground, and the porch and the front door.

HerrBag has a good suggestion that you can use brick veneer. Some other options I'd encourage you to consider:

• tiles (concrete is ideal for tiling and there are plenty of outdoor options)
• stone veneer (stone veneers can look great)
• stain (not everyone likes the look of stained concrete, but a lot of people do. It's also likely the easiest to implement and if it ends up looking bad, you can always add tile/veneers after)
• Stone topper (like a hearth...one large monolithic piece of stone)
• epoxy texture paint (lots of options...many offer up a marble-ish speckled option)