Interlocking concrete pavers can be used to complement the color of a home by accenting landscape elements as well as the geometry of patios and entranceways.

Interlocking concrete pavers are being specified for a wide range of medium and heavy-duty applications including airports, shipping ports, service stations, and roads. At the current time over forty airports and fifty major shipping ports around the world have installed pavers, primarily in loading and handling areas. Notable examples include airports in Hong Kong and Dallas and shipping ports in New Orleans, Baltimore and Vancouver.

In specialized industrial applications, pavers are also being utilized for container handling facilities, industrial yards and other similar installations. They have also been specified for erosion control measures such as causeways and spillways.

According to Andy Winchell of Pavestone Company, pavers also provide color permanence, consistency, and inherent flexibility. "The high level of quality control in manufacturing and the consistency of the product are strong selling features," reports Winchell. "With pavers, loads are spread uniformly into the subbase which makes them ideally suited for areas which receive heavy loads and traffic." According to Winchell, pavers can literally flex like chain mail to withstand movement and stress without structural cracking. "Concrete paver systems are almost certainly the only pavement system that actually increases in strength under loading and stress," said Winchell. In addition, where utilities are installed underground, pavers can be easily removed and reinstalled at a significantly lower cost than is the case with conventional monolithic pavements.

Streets and Roadways

The flexibility and superior performance of pavers, coupled with their high aesthetic value and low maintenance costs, has firmly established them as a viable form of urban and suburban street and roadway construction.

The public acceptance of the use of pavers for streets has been extremely high. Many property developers have reported that the extra cost of pavers can be recovered by the increase in home sales value. In addition, planners are increasingly using pavers as the central element in the landscaping of downtown urban renewal projects. Pavers offer a wide range of aesthetic possibilities and provide designers with colors, textures and shapes that can harmonize with virtually any surface of brick or natural stone.

Interlocking pavers define steps and planters with a variety of shapes, textures, and patterns.

Pavers have been widely used for pedestrian crossings in asphalt-paved streets in Canada, Britain, and Asia and more recently in a number of projects in the US. This concept is based on the visual contrast provided between the paver colors and texture with that of the surrounding asphalt. (Several studies have indicated that this technique reduces vehicle speeds and increases pedestrian safety.)

Parking Lots

Pavers are also being specified for parking lots where they have demonstrated very little deterioration under constant exposure to the elements. The result has been a significant reduction in long-term maintenance costs and a noticeable improvement in the appearance of the parking lot by utilizing the wide range of colors and textures provided by pavers.

Colored pavers can also provide permanent, maintenance free delineation of parking areas, access lanes and pedestrian crossings.

Service Stations

ICP's have been successfully used in auto service stations where the need to resist repeated fuel and oil spillage, withstand continuous traffic without interruption for maintenance, and easily access underground tanks were factors that led to their selection. (Note: it is recommended that the sand installed in the joints between the pavers be sealed and stabilized to minimize gasoline infiltration. There are several products now available for this specific application.) LASN

Interlocking pavers are an elegant building material that enhances the sale value of a home as well as being inexpensive and virtually impermeable to the natural elements.