Mason Sand for Indiana Paver Beds and Mortar Mixes

Up in the dune and lake plain country, where the native ground is already sand for the first several feet, the sand people actually order is mason sand, and almost always for the same reason: a paver patio or apron that has to end up flat and stay flat. It is the fine, washed material that beds the pavers and then sweeps into the joints between them. Nothing else on the yard does that job as cleanly, and nothing else gets asked to do so many jobs it was never meant for.

Washing is what makes it usable near the surface. Clay and silt left in a sand would hold water in the bed, stain a paver face and weaken a mortar mix. Taking them out leaves a clean, even material that handles the same way from one load to the next.

What mason sand does on sand plain and on Calumet clay

The north is not one kind of ground. Dune and beach ridge sand along the Lake Michigan shore drains almost too well, and on it a paver bed sits on a subgrade that will never hold water but will happily let fines wash down through it over the years. On the clay till ridges and the old lake plain a short distance inland, the opposite problem shows up: water perches under the patio, freezes, and lifts the whole thing in February.

Neither problem is solved by sand. That is the single most useful thing to know about this material. The bedding layer is a thin setting course, not a base. A compacted layer of #53 stone underneath does the structural work and gives the water somewhere to go, and the sand goes over it at the thickness of a bed, not a foundation. Where the flats stay wet through a long winter, that base has to have an outlet or the frost will find it.

Laying the bed and filling the joints

Screed the sand to an even thickness over a base that is already compacted and already at the fall you want, then set pavers straight onto it without disturbing what you have leveled. Do not compact the bed before setting, and do not use extra sand to correct a base that is out of level. It will settle back to the shape of the base underneath, taking the pavers with it.

Once the pavers are down, sweep dry sand into the joints and vibrate it in, topping up until the joints stop taking material. Keep the whole area edged so the bed has something to bear against; an unedged patio loses its outside row first.

Away from hardscape, the same washing that makes it clean makes it suitable for sandboxes and for a volleyball court, where a fine, even grain is what people want underfoot. It is also the fine aggregate in mortar, stucco and grout mixes, which is where its other name comes from.

Against the two materials it is most often confused with

If the patio is going to carry a vehicle, take advice on the bedding material before you order, because the finer the sand, the more it will move under concentrated load. For general foot-traffic patios, walks and aprons, the fine washed grain is the straightforward pick.

Bedding a garage apron, a splash area and a wall backfill

Hypothetical jobs, worked through so you can repeat the method. Length times width times depth in feet, divided by 27, gives cubic yards.

Paver bedding for a garage apron, 20 feet by 24 feet, bed 1 inch thick. 20 x 24 = 480 square feet. One inch is 0.083 feet. 480 x 0.083 = 40 cubic feet. 40 divided by 27 = 1.5 cubic yards.

The same bed under a shed floor, 12 feet by 14 feet at 1 inch. 12 x 14 = 168 square feet. 168 x 0.083 = 14 cubic feet, which is 0.5 cubic yards. Small quantities like this are the ones people underestimate, because a yard of sand looks like far more than it covers once it is screeded flat.

A splash area under a downspout, 4 feet by 3 feet at 2 inches. 4 x 3 = 12 square feet. Two inches is 0.167 feet. 12 x 0.167 = 2 cubic feet, barely a fifteenth of a yard, and the wrong material anyway: concentrated water cuts a hole straight through fine sand. Use 3/4 inch crushed stone or river rock there instead.

Backfill behind a retaining wall, 24 feet long, a 12 inch zone, 3 feet high. 24 x 1 x 3 = 72 cubic feet, or 2.7 cubic yards. Again, not the job for fine sand. That zone wants free-draining washed stone such as #57 stone, so water does not build up behind the wall through a freeze-thaw winter.

At the weight this site publishes for mason and washed sand, about 2,700 lb per cubic yard or roughly 1.35 tons per yard, the two bedding jobs above come to approximately 2.0 tons and 0.7 tons.

Sand is sold by weight, so put your own measurements through the sand calculator, which takes length, width and depth, handles a circle or up to five areas, and adds 5 percent by default for spread and loss.

Ordering and the day it arrives

Choose a delivery date, then a quantity, on this page. Delivery is set from the ZIP code you enter at checkout, and the truck needs a route in and firm ground where it can raise a bed. Pick a dump spot on hard standing close to the work, because sand is the one material you cannot scrape cleanly off grass. If your approach is tight or the work is round the back, say so through the contact page before you book the date.