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PGT Driveway & Pavers: The San Jose Owner’s Guide
PGT driveway and paver part replacement in San Jose typically runs $8260 – $21240 for a full paver driveway installation, depending on square footage, existing substrate condition, and paver style. We stock PGT-compatible paver units and edge restraints on our trucks for most common San Jose installs, so we can often match, price, and schedule the repair in a single visit. Most homeowners discover the failure after a winter storm: you walk out to a sunken section near the garage apron, a cracked paver along the walk line, or an edge that’s started to migrate into the lawn. The failure is rarely the paver itself. It’s what’s underneath it.
If you’ve got a PGT paver driveway that’s shifting, sinking, or separating at the seams, this page tells you what failed, what it costs to fix in San Jose, and whether you should touch it yourself. We’re Bradford Remodeling Co San Jose, an independent contractor. We are not affiliated with PGT. We do, however, work with their product lines regularly enough to know exactly how they behave in Santa Clara County soil.
Which PGT Models This Applies To
PGT manufactures pavers in three primary product families: the Holland/rectangle series, the tumbled/antique series, and the permeable series. The Holland-style units, typically 4″ x 8″ and 60mm thick, are the workhorse for San Jose driveways. The tumbled series runs 6″ x 9″ nominal with softer edges, and the permeable units use a wider joint profile designed for stormwater infiltration, which matters in San Jose neighborhoods with clay-heavy soil and slow percolation.
The compatibility gotcha: PGT changed their color blends and texture finish around 2018, so a paver purchased in 2016 will not always match a 2024 production run from the same color family name. If your driveway was installed before the changeover and you need a section repaired, we’ll pull a sample and match against current production stock before we quote the job. Sometimes the honest answer is that you’ll have a visible seam unless you stagger old and new units across the full surface. We’ll tell you that before you spend a dollar.
On the OEM versus aftermarket question: for PGT driveways, we use genuine PGT units whenever the repair requires more than a few replacement pavers. Aftermarket equivalents from Belgard and Unilock are structurally fine, but the chamfer and color saturation differ enough that a mixed repair in a visible area looks patched. For full replacements, the aftermarket conversation is different, and we’ll price both ways. You get the written number either way.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your PGT Driveway & Pavers Is Failing
- Localized sinking or low spots that hold water after rain. This is almost always a base failure, not a paver failure. San Jose’s clay soil expands and contracts with moisture, and if the original install skimped on compacted aggregate base, voids form under the pavers and they drop. Water pooling means the subsurface has failed in that spot.
- Edge pavers separating from the concrete collar or lawn line. Edge restraints, usually plastic or aluminum, hold the field in tension. When they crack or pull away, the outside pavers walk outward over a season or two. You’ll see a widening gap that runs the length of the border.
- Sand washing out of the joints after every rain. Polymeric sand is supposed to lock the joints. If you’re seeing sand run onto the garage floor or into the gutter after a storm, the joint material has deteriorated or was never properly cured. Left alone, the pavers start rocking and chipping at the corners.
- Cracked or spalled paver surfaces in the tire track lines. Pavers take the full point load of a vehicle. If the units crack along the wheel path, either the base compacted unevenly or the pavers were installed over a section of old concrete that’s now shifting. Patching a few units won’t fix the base, and the crack comes back.
- Weeds pushing through from below. Persistent weeds that regrow weeks after treatment signal a failure in the base fabric or an organic layer under the pavers that shouldn’t be there. It’s a cosmetic symptom with a structural cause.
Replacement Cost & What’s Included
Full paver driveway installation in San Jose runs $8260 – $21240 for a typical two-car driveway. That’s the installed number, including demolition of the existing surface, base preparation, paver installation, edge restraint, and polymeric sand joints. Smaller repair scopes, like re-leveling a 100-square-foot sunken section, land toward the bottom of the range or below it, depending on what we find when we pull the pavers.
What drives the difference between a driveway that costs $8,260 and one that costs $21,240:
- Square footage: a two-car driveway runs 400 – 600 square feet. Wider or longer runs, walkways, and aprons add area quickly.
- Base condition: if the existing aggregate base is undermined by clay soil movement in San Jose, we’re removing and rebuilding it. That’s labor and material that doesn’t show in the finished job but determines whether it lasts.
- Paver series and color: tumbled units run higher than standard Holland units, and some PGT color lines carry a premium.
- Access and site conditions: narrow side yards, fence lines, and drainage requirements all affect labor. If we need to remove and reset a section of concrete, that’s on the line-item estimate.
Every quote we write in San Jose is a fixed number with a written scope. The price we hand you is the price you pay. No discovery-day surprises, no change-order letters at the end of the job. The work carries our written 365-Day Done Right Promise: if any part of the installation fails within a full year, we come back and correct it at no charge. You’ll have that promise in writing before we put a shovel in the ground.
See the difference
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AfterDIY or Call Us?
You can safely inspect your own paver driveway. Walk the surface, mark the low spots with sidewalk chalk, and check the edges where they meet concrete or lawn. None of that requires tools or skill. What you shouldn’t do is pull up a section of pavers to “see what’s underneath.” Once you break the edge restraint and disturb the sand bed, you’ve traded a repairable section for a full re-leveling job. And running a plate compactor on your own, without verifying the base depth and compaction layer, will leave you with the same failure you started with, plus a rental fee and a sore back.
Pavers don’t carry the injury risk of a garage door spring or an electrical panel. The danger here is financial: a homeowner-grade base rebuild that fails in two years costs more than doing it once, right. If you want a second set of eyes before you decide, call us at (669) 272-2637. We’ll walk the driveway, tell you what failed, and give you a written number. No charge for the estimate.
Key Takeaways
- PGT driveway and paver failures in San Jose are almost always subsurface, not the paver itself.
- Installed replacement ranges from $8260 to $21240, depending on square footage, base condition, and paver series.
- PGT color blends changed around 2018; older driveways may require a full-field stagger to avoid a visible patch seam.
- Never break an edge restraint and disturb the sand bed on your own; it turns a repair into a rebuild.
- Every estimate is written, fixed, and backed by the 365-Day Done Right Promise.
FAQs
A properly installed PGT paver driveway in San Jose should last 25 – 30 years, with the surface pavers themselves often outlasting the homeowner. The base is the variable. In San Jose’s clay-heavy soils, a driveway built on a properly compacted aggregate base with fabric separation will hold for decades. A thin base over undisturbed clay will fail in five to seven years. The pavers don’t wear out; the ground under them gives up first. Call (669) 272-2637 and we’ll tell you which case you have.
Yes, in most cases a sunken section, edge failure, or localized crack can be repaired by lifting the affected pavers, rebuilding the base in that area, and re-setting the units. The limit is color matching on pre-2018 PGT blends. We’ll pull a sample and tell you honestly whether the repair will blend or show a seam. If you want the exact quote in writing, call (669) 272-2637 for a free estimate.
A full teardown and replacement of a standard two-car paver driveway in San Jose takes three to five working days, depending on base conditions and access. A localized repair of a sunken section is typically a single day. We schedule the work after we hand you the written scope, and the date we give you is the date we start.
We carry common PGT Holland-style units in standard San Jose colors on our service trucks, along with edge restraints, joint sand, and base material for common repairs. If your specific color or series isn’t on the truck, we source it directly and schedule the repair once the material is in hand. We’ll tell you the lead time before you commit to anything.
Need a straight answer on your PGT driveway? Call Bradford Remodeling Co San Jose at (669) 272-2637. We’ll walk the site, write the scope, and hand you a fixed number. Straight number, written scope, done when we said done.
Written by Curtis Lane, Owner, Bradford Remodeling Co at Bradford Remodeling Co San Jose, serving San Jose and nearby areas.
