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Initially I was looking for this:
enter image description here

I was told that distributors do not sell this anymore because it is unsafe (tripping hazard). I am thinking about using the joint between my pavers and my edge to for a drain channel. The patio is sloped in such a way that it will allow me to do this. Here is a ground zero view of my patio and the beveled concrete blocks used for edging.

Rendering of patio and concrete blocks

Do I need to supplementary seal the joint between pavers and patio edge concrete blocks when that joint is used as a drain channel?

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  • Are you in a climate where the draining water may freeze?
    – Daniel Griscom
    Commented Jun 30, 2015 at 3:06
  • Yes I am in Eastern Canada
    – MiniMe
    Commented Jun 30, 2015 at 3:16
  • In that case you need to worry about water under the blocks freezing and damaging things.
    – Daniel Griscom
    Commented Jun 30, 2015 at 3:56
  • I do not see why this is a problem more for these pavers than 4 any pavers on the same patio. The runoff should be the same and so should be the amount of infiltration water that goes throgh the pavers. In most applications the pavers (and a patio in general) are considered almost impermeable (can't say that I understand that, they do absorb water) .Having that said, even if the amount of water that collects at this edge is higher it should drain toward a collection point where a drain (the corner where the camera is sitting in the picture above) and pipe will take the water away from there.
    – MiniMe
    Commented Jun 30, 2015 at 16:49
  • Can somebody tell me the name for this kind of drainage paver?
    – bhspencer
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 17:21

2 Answers 2

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Yes, I would seal it the best I could, otherwise some of the water would soak in between the joints. If it sloping away from the structure you should be fine.

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  • What would you recommend for that?
    – MiniMe
    Commented Jun 30, 2015 at 3:17
  • I would use Polymeric Sand. It may not last forever with lots of drainage passing over it, so keep an eye an it and touch up as needed.
    – Off The Gold
    Commented Jul 1, 2015 at 2:44
  • I asked that question around here and I was told that this type of sand is not for sealing the joints but rather for locking the pavers..
    – MiniMe
    Commented Jul 1, 2015 at 3:04
  • They may be right, It is basically cement, and can only cover smaller gaps. Of course it is not really clear to me what type of joint you are trying to fill in. It seems caulks don't last either and they are more difficult to repair.
    – Off The Gold
    Commented Jul 1, 2015 at 17:59
  • I just finished resetting the last 4 lines of brick and guess what, I now have a 2/8" or 3/8" space/gap between the cement blocks and the pavers. At this point I am considering masonry caulking like I did here with a little bit bigger space diy.stackexchange.com/questions/52169/… It has been almost an year since then and the caulking with backing rod below it looks intact today. It will be a very good way to seal that edege
    – MiniMe
    Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 2:58
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Leaving joists between two different elements and/or two different materials without any seal is never a good idea if you ask me, especially outside. Even if everything works great it can look a bit ugly because elements could be in different slopes or slopes might be in different planes and some edge differences between elements might become visible which doesn't look good. The other reason is water can get into these gaps and cause many problems. So to put it in one word yes, you need to seal the joint. Next question is which material should be used? I don't recommend any type of batten for so many reasons which I wouldn't like to explain here. I would recommend some type of caulk specialized for outdoor usage. Any half decent seller at any specialized store can recommend you such product. Also you do it old way: back in early days when there weren't tons of specialized products people were using bitumen for this purpose. Maybe it is not going to last forever but it will get the job done and it tolerates temperature differences, at least for a while.

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