Paver brick Vs. Concrete Trash can pad

On the side of my house I currently my trash can stored, its a bit of a eye sore and not up to city code (city requires that it either be stored in the garage or behind some form of privacy. It lays between the house and a small path (see pictured). I am thinking of putting a post up and painting a piece of wood to block the view of it, however I am considering Paver brick Vs. Concrete Trash can pad. Bricks seems to be the most cost effective and ease of installation( Estimated cost is around $75). In the future I would like to put a small storage next to the cans. The total space I have to work with is 48sqft. The concrete is more then double the price ($364), and will require to rent a mixer and rent a trailer to get the materials. Seems like the bricks are the way to go, but am I missing any cons? It really wont be in play site so the look doesn't matter just functionallity and maybe does it create bug problems?

Look up a complete how to on doing the pavers. You don't just smooth and put them down, and they will shift and grow stuff if you're not diligent.

https://westerninterlock.com/category/how-to-hardscape/

Another bonus of concrete, I suspect, is that putting in the pad and putting up the post become one operation.

I like pavers, but execution is important.

I am not sure I understand the issue fully.

I'd put down some plastic and some river rock for the cans to sit on.  Then I'd put up a very small fence panel like the one above.

Pavers for garbage cans are not rocket surgery.   They are light, you dont walk on them, and you don't see the pavers 99% of the time.

Dig out the sod

Dig down the depth of the pavers plus 2"

Put 2" of sand, reasonably level, in the hole, compact it with a hand compactor.  Pitch them 1/8" per foot away from your structure. Use the outside line on a bubble level to determine pitch.

Set the pavers

Put sand on top, sweep in.

Occasionally Roundup it to keep the weeds down.

Afternoon job.

Concrete is basically the same process but a little more involved.

Get the concrete.

Get a wheelbarrow.

Get some rebar if you want, but again this is low load so YOLO is fine too.

Dig it out, put some sand or pea gravel in the bottom.

Make some forms with 2x6s

Mix the concrete in a wheelbarrow with a garden hoe

Pour it out, level it with a 2x4

Broom the surface if you want

I would do pavers.

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

Budget wise and ease pavers seem to be inline for me. I have seen a couple different approaches one was landscape fabric (to prevent weeds) which I do use in the front laying and it's not very expensive. Others have just used plastic drop cloths which are also very inexpensive (not a long term solution but might help a little). Second some people lay a foundation of paver base (one person used gravel, maybe they had some left over?) and then 1" layer of sand. Why would you use 2" of sand rather then Gravel or paver base?

Honestly for a couple of trash cans, you could just sit a few pavers right on the soil after digging out to make them level with the existing concrete. After a few rains they will settle into place. Maybe they become slightly uneven over time...years probably...who cares, they are under trash. 

Or for concrete, for that small of a pad, you could probably just shovel-mix it in a wheelbarrow like was said.

Not rocket surgery.

Pavers will be a lot easier to install.  With concrete, the clock starts when you mix it up so you have to get it poured and finished before it hardens, while there's no issue with pavers if you get part way done and have to leave it for a while.

Check Craigslist/Marketplace/etc., people sometimes will have small amounts of pavers available for free.

If you're building a small fence or enclosure around the cans, you don't need to set the posts in concrete.  It just makes them rot out faster, and it's not like there's going to be huge lateral loads trying to push it over.

In reply to trigun7469 :

Do you have to hide the  cans from the view we see here or are you asking about a pad?  Or do they not want to see the cans at all (aka 3 walls)?

If it's a wall, find some the color of the bricks on the front of your house and make something with each layer of brick off set by half, it's a wall but air gets through.  Pad of whatever you have or can find cheap, no one will see it.  Also think about having to roll a full can out from behind a wall, in my case sometimes with a lot of snow on the ground.

In reply to trigun7469 :

The purpose of the "landscape" fabric is to separate the subgrade soil from the stone above, which prevents settling issues as the stone sinks into the soil. Usually you'll want to use a geotextile, but it may not matter with how light-duty you're talking here, just make sure it drains. In your case, it probably doesn't matter if you're using 2A or 2B stone (Modified instead of clean), but a lot of the industry has moved to 2B clean with about 1 inch of #8 chip on top for screeding. It drains a lot better than dense pack 2A modified.

For 2A, you use about 3/4" of sand for screeding. In either case, pitch the installation away from the house, and you can use some EMT conduit as screed bars.

In reply to stuart in mn :

I actually looked at Check Craigslist/Marketplace/etc, most people either don't have enough or are charging more then Menards is the cheapest so far. Using the calculator I actually need 252 (crazy right?) Just need to figure out how to get them to my home. Delivery is $100 but I can rent a trailer for $35, just need to figure out where to get a pallet jack for easy get off the trailer.

In reply to 914Driver :

I am planning to do both a pad and hide the cans. The only person complaining is my wife  I have a piece of plywood that I am going to paint white and screw to a post. If she doesn't like it I will take it down, but this is all stuff I have and don't need to buy, I wasn't planing on walling off the cans.

Make it cool - my old 'hood was digging up and replacing sewers and told the community you could take the bricks out of the dirt piles for free.  
 

800 bricks later.........

Reason for using 2" sand and no roadbase - I am lazy.  We are not building a church.  2" of sand is plenty good for stuff that doesnt see vehicle traffic.  

Pallet jack - no need.  Have Menards bros load them in your Menards rented truck, unload by hand when you get home.  Will take a few minutes but not bad.

The whole stuff you see on the internet - 4" of base, 2" of sand - retainers, blah blah blah.  OK if I am getting paid to do it I dont wanna be the comeback kid.  If its my house and its literally a pad for garbage cans, I am not doing half of that stuff.

My garbage cans are set on flagstone next to the garage.  Literally just set them on the grass, hit it with roundup, waited for the grass to die, then shovelled some sand on top and swept it into the cracks.  Still looks real nice 10 years later.  Total time was about an hour.  

trigun7469 said:

In reply to stuart in mn :

I actually looked at Check Craigslist/Marketplace/etc, most people either don't have enough or are charging more then Menards is the cheapest so far. Using the calculator I actually need 252 (crazy right?) Just need to figure out how to get them to my home. Delivery is $100 but I can rent a trailer for $35, just need to figure out where to get a pallet jack for easy get off the trailer.

You must be making a spot a lot larger than one or two garbage cans if you need 252 pavers?

In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :

That looks nice, did you shelac the bricks? they look like they have a sheen.

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

I didn't know that you can rent a truck there, I will check it out. Your right I can just unload it myself.

In reply to trigun7469 :

Two years ago I sealed the pavers with some magical brick sealing liquid from Menards.  

The 100 year old pavers was towards the end when I had a lot of liquid to finish up. 

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

"Menards bros load them in your Menards rented truck, unload by hand when you get home.  Will take a few minutes but not bad."

Perhaps its the store that is local to me, but they never load it (many people say the same thing). Home Depot, Lowes, ect.. will but never Menards. It cost me $48 to rent a truck, they bring you the pallet and make you load it and then barney fife is there to do a once over. Which theoretically it might have been cheaper just renting a trailer, but it was cheaper then the $111 for shipping, however money/time/labor. I could have also done 3-4 trips to get everything with my SUV but I had a 2 1/2 hour window to get it down. Perhaps this even more evidence why I need a pickup. I miss my Tacoma. When it stops raining I will get to work on the paved path.

No reason to over think this. It's not a patio. You just need to keep the trashcans from sitting in dirt.

Lowes is selling 24" square pavers in a few different colors for $16/piece right now. Buy one per trash can, load them in whatever vehicle you have, and have them laid down in 10 minutes with the bare minimum of prep (clear any vegetation, make sure the ground is flat):
 

I would do pavers, but I would definitely go ahead and do it "right."  You'll probably be fine like 93GSX says, but I would hate for you to do all the work and then realize next January that they have heaved up so badly that the cans fall over or roll away.  You don't have to purchase gravel.  I have done it before with non-rotting junk laying around.  The paver I have at my permanent campsite sits on top of some old aluminum ladder rungs and sand I shoveled off the beach.  The ladder I picked up on the side of the road and it looked like the rungs had been driven over.... about half-crushed.  I cut the rungs out and kept the I-beam sides.  I was going to recycle the rungs, but I used them as road bed instead.  I have some others sitting on a bed of small PT lumber off-cuts.  My buddy used to make and sell wooden lawn art, like a jigsawed chicken or a daisy windmill using PT deck boards, so I just raided his trash can for little nuggets of lumber.  I know that one will be in trouble in 8-10 years, but it was good enough for the project.

You just need something like gravel that drains and doesn't hold water.  Heck... take a recycling bin full of beer bottles and break them up, or full of beer cans and squish them.  I am eyeballing some anti-fatigue rubber mats with the 3/4" holes in them as paver beds.  They're all torn up and beat anyway.

I'm just saying that the gravel is a tried and true method, but it can be anything that doesn't freeze or rot.  If you want to go super cheap, just buy some concrete blocks and dig 8" down.

I ended doing it, my wife made a big stink about the piece of wood I used on the post. So I took it off. I suggested using fencing and she got all uppity about it because she wants it white. Meanwhile she has a degree in studio art so I suggested she paint it lolz. Married life….All in I spent $165 which includes renting a truck and returning overage of materials I didn't need. Not a bad job took me about 3 1/2 hours which includes cleaning up. The sand is wet so I am going to wait for it to dry to clean up a little more. I also am getting $14 in rebate money. Next job is organizing my garage and then framing and drywall my basement.

Great job!  You should feel proud.