The Paver Installation Method That's Changing the Game in the Vail Valley. Here's What Most Contractors Won't Tell You.
- Jack Benninghoff
- Feb 1
- 4 min read
Most homeowners in Vail, Beaver Creek, Edwards, and the surrounding Eagle County area spend weeks choosing the perfect paver style — and almost no time thinking about what goes underneath them. That's a costly mistake at altitude. The base system beneath your pavers will determine whether your investment looks beautiful for 30 years, or starts heaving and crumbling after just a few brutal mountain winters.
Living at elevation: why Vail Valley is hard on pavers
At 8,000+ feet, Vail and Eagle County don't just get cold — we get freeze-thaw cycles on steroids. Temperatures can swing from below zero overnight to above freezing by midday, sometimes multiple times in a single week. That constant expansion and contraction of the ground beneath your pavers is one of the most destructive forces in hardscaping, and most homeowners don't even know it's happening until it's too late.
Choosing the right base system isn't just a nice upgrade in our climate — it's essential.
The traditional approach: sand set installation
The sand set method has been the industry standard for decades. A 5-inch or deeper layer of compacted road base is laid down, topped with a 1-inch layer of coarse bedding sand. Pavers are set on top, and polymeric sand is swept into the joints to lock everything in place. In mild climates, this works fine. But in Vail, Beaver Creek, and the surrounding valley — where temperatures can swing from bitter cold overnight to above freezing by afternoon — this system has one critical flaw: it holds water.
The freeze-thaw problem
Water expands roughly 9% when it freezes. In a sand set installation, moisture trapped in the bedding layer has nowhere to escape. It freezes, expands, and forces your pavers upward from below — a process called frost heaving. When temperatures rise again, the base settles, but never quite evenly. Do that dozens of times over a single Eagle County winter and you end up with sunken sections, raised edges, cracked pavers, and an uneven surface that becomes both an eyesore and a liability.
The better way: open grade installation
An open grade system starts from the ground up — literally. Instead of compacted road base and sand bedding, every layer is specifically chosen for one purpose: letting water drain freely and completely away from your pavers. Here's how we build it at Elevate: We begin by excavating 10–12 inches down, then compact the native subgrade to create a firm, stable foundation. A geotextile fabric is then laid across the entire area — this is a critical step that most homeowners never see, but it acts as a permanent barrier between the native soil below and the clean stone above, preventing any mixing over time. From there, we install 8 or more inches of clean ¾" washed angular crushed stone — no fines, no dust, no particles to clog the voids. This is the heart of the system. Because every piece of stone is uniform in size, water moves straight through it like a sieve. On top of that goes a 1-inch setting bed of 3/8" chip stone, and finally the pavers themselves are laid, compacted, and finished with polymeric sand in the joints. The result is a base that simply doesn't hold water. Rain, snowmelt, spring runoff — it all drains through and away before it ever has a chance to freeze. No trapped moisture. No ice expansion. No frost heaving. Just a solid, stable surface built to handle everything an Eagle County winter throws at it.
Side-by-side comparison
Side-by-side comparison
Feature | Sand Set | Open Grade |
Water drainage | Retains moisture | Drains freely |
Freeze-thaw resistance | Vulnerable | Highly resistant |
Long-term stability | Can shift & settle | Remains consistent |
Best climate | Mild, low-moisture | Cold, high-altitude ✓ |
Upfront cost | Lower | Slightly higher |
Long-term cost | Higher (repairs) | Lower |
Yes, it costs a little more — and takes a little longer
We'll be upfront: an open grade installation does come with a slightly higher material cost and a longer installation process than a standard sand set job. The drainage stone is more expensive than dense-grade aggregate, and the system requires more careful attention to grading, edge containment, and drainage pathways to perform correctly.
But that investment pays for itself quickly. When your patio isn't heaving, cracking, or washing out every spring, you're not paying for repairs. You're not having sections pulled up and relaid. You're simply enjoying your outdoor space the way you intended when you made the investment in the first place.
Additional advantages for mountain properties
Stormwater management. Our mountain snowmelt and summer afternoon storms generate serious runoff. Open grade systems allow water to infiltrate back into the ground rather than sheeting off into landscaping or neighboring properties — an increasingly important consideration in Eagle County.
Reduced edge erosion. Because water moves through the base rather than pooling beneath it, you'll see far less erosion along patio edges and garden beds — a common complaint with sand set installations after our snowmelt season.
Easier repairs. If a single paver ever needs to be reset, the chip bedding layer doesn't have hardened polymeric sand to chip out — the stone simply redistributes and the paver drops right back in.
The Elevate promise
At Elevate, we believe so strongly in the open grade system for mountain installations that we back every paver project with a 10-year warranty. That's not a number we arrived at lightly — it's the direct result of building every installation on a proper open grade base designed for the freeze-thaw conditions we see here in Vail, Beaver Creek, Edwards, and Wolcott. When you hire Elevate, you're not just getting beautiful pavers. You're getting a system engineered to perform at elevation for decades.
Ready to build something that lasts?
Whether you're planning a new patio in Vail Village, a driveway in Beaver Creek, or a walkway at your Edwards home, we'd love to talk through your project and help you understand what installation approach makes the most sense for your site.
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