Repair or replace: the quick answer
Relay if the pavers are sound and a match exists for any that need swapping. Replace if the pavers are crumbling, chipping across the whole area, salt attacked near the coast or a pool, or discontinued with nothing close. Because pavers last 30 to 50 years and the sand bed under them only 10 to 20, most Perth jobs end up as relays rather than replacements, and the main paving repairs page covers that path in full. One more number helps: clay pavers hold their colour for 50 years or more, while concrete fades over 25 to 40, so a tired concrete driveway may be a replacement candidate on looks before it is on structure.
| Symptom | Usual fix | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Surface wavy, pavers hard and whole | Lift and relay | The bed failed, the pavers did not |
| Faces flaking, edges crumbling to sand | Replace | Salt or weathering has reached the paver itself |
| Dozens broken, colour no longer made | Replace a band, or the lot | Scattered mismatches look worse than a deliberate border |
Why Perth pavers reach the end
Three Perth conditions wear pavers out ahead of time. The first is salt. Within roughly 1 to 2 km of the ocean, salt laden wind drives efflorescence and surface weathering, and around pools the same thing happens from splash and salt chlorination. Crumbling concrete or limestone pavers beside a pool or in a coastal suburb are nearly always salt attack, where salt crystallises inside the paver surface and breaks it apart. The lasting answer is dense or sealed concrete, or quality clay pavers, and fixing whatever keeps the surface wet. Pool surround material choices are on pool paving.
The second is sun. WA ultraviolet fades concrete pavers steadily, which is why a 30 year old concrete driveway looks grey while a clay one next door still reads red. The third is load: thin pavers under cars crack and chip at the wheel lines, and once that has spread, swapping single units no longer works. After any replacement, sealing is the step that slows all three down, covered under paving sealing and cleaning.
Matching old and discontinued pavers
We work through the matching options in a fixed order.
- Identify the paver. Clay or concrete, and the exact size. Clay pavers are commonly 230 by 115 mm and concrete 200 by 100 mm, and the two will not run together in one pattern.
- Check current ranges. Midland Brick and Austral Masonry still make close equivalents of many older colours. Brikmakers was folded into Midland Brick in 2021, so a discontinued Brikmakers paver often has a near match in the Midland range.
- Source second hand. Where a genuine match exists on the second hand market, we use it.
- Harvest from a hidden area. Often the best answer: lift matching pavers from behind the shed or under the bin bay, use them in the visible repair, and lay the new pavers where nobody looks.
- Design around it. Where no match exists, replace a whole band, border or section in a contrasting paver so the change reads as a design choice rather than a patch.
Choosing a new paver from scratch is covered on brick paving and in how to choose pavers.
How IBP replaces paving
- Remove and dispose. The old pavers come up and go into a skip, or are kept for reuse elsewhere on site.
- Check what moved. If the bed has shifted, we find out why before anything new goes down, and if water is the cause we deal with it through soakwells or drainage first.
- Re-bed. Compacted road base under driveways, then screeded washed paving sand with a fall away from the house.
- Lay, compact, re-sand and haunch. New pavers laid in pattern, plate compacted, joints sanded, every free edge haunched in concrete.
- Seal where the material calls for it, once the pavers have dried out.
A full replacement of a driveway or alfresco is quoted as new paving, so see driveway paving and patio and alfresco paving for what that involves. Our lifetime workmanship warranty covers IBP's own work and the section IBP re-lays.
What paving replacement costs in Perth
As indicative Perth industry ranges from a third party 2026 Perth cost guide, not an IBP price list: supply and lay runs roughly $75 to $110 per m2 for concrete pavers, $130 to $210 for clay brick and $80 to $160 for limestone. Replacing a section costs more per square metre than a whole area, because cutting in to an existing pattern and matching units is slower than open laying. What moves the quote: material, area, pattern, access, disposal of the old paving and whether any drainage work is needed. See paving cost in Perth and driveway paving cost in Perth.
Source: perthpavers.com.au Perth paving cost guide (2026), third party. Indicative Perth industry ranges only.
Replacement, relay or spot repair: which page
- Pavers sound, bed failed: paving re-laying.
- One sunken patch: sunken paving repair.
- Lifted by roots: pavers lifted by tree roots.
- Choosing a new material: brick paving or stone paving.
Full replacements cluster in the mature 1960s and 1970s suburbs, where driveways are at 45 to 50 years and infill subdivision is re-paving whole lots: Girrawheen, Greenwood, Balga and Duncraig, plus the full list of areas.
