How to Strip Old Sealer from Pavers and Seal Stones | Long Island NY

Can a poor application of driveway sealer be corrected? Depending on the severity of the problem, it may require saturation, aggressive scrubbing, and repeated applications to re-emulsify the sealer.
If you’ve ever seen some pavers that have turned white after being sealed, the white haze or film you see is trapped moisture. “Whiting” as it is called in our industry, is not to be confused with concrete efflorescence, which can cause white-looking pavers to happen at any time, due to natural causes.
Whiting happens when your pavers have been sealed with a xylene or acrylic (solvent-based) sealer or sealed during imperfect weather conditions or application. The trapped moisture is caused by hydrostatic pressure, which brings the moisture up through the pores of the pavers and traps it under the sealer. Once your pavers have “turned white”, there is only one way to rectify the problem. The sealer must be completely stripped off and re-sealed with the correct type of sealer.
Removing and Stripping Old Sealant Off Driveway Pavers
The first step in this job is to strip and remove all the old sealer from the paving stone driveway. Unfortunately, the previous contractor did not complete the job properly the first time. Through time many additional layers of sealer have been applied and have magnified the patchy poor paver color "whiting" issues. There are a few different layers of sealer, the latest application seems to be an acrylic sealer. It gives a shiny look to the stones, the issue over the years has made the problem worse and more noticeable.
We are applying the sealer remover. It is a stripper. We will finish applying the sealer and let it sit for a few minutes. Then we start the process of pressure washing it off from the top of the pavers.
We have started removing the sealer. The stripper soaks in and makes it possible to remove the sealant layers. We are using the turbo nozzle with high pressure and hot water. Then we pressure washed the surface of the pavers with hot water, low pressure. As we strip the driveway each layer of the old sealer is being removed.
What type of sand material fills the joints between pavers?
We add sand to the stone pavers. We are in the process of spreading the sand in the joints. We are using white silica sand, which works well with the urethane sealer, it absorbs the sealer and gets very hard. It also is very dry and falls into space very easily. We are compacting the sand with a vibratory roller. The compactor has rolls under it to prevent it from scratching the stones. We then apply the sand once, vibrate it respread the sand, and vibrate it a second time. We are doing the final touches with the sand. We are blowing the extra sand from the top of the stones without removing it from the joints.
Polymeric sand is best to use to fill the joints in between pavers. High-quality polymeric sand will not leave any stains on the surface. Gappsi vibrates the pavers while sweeping which allows the sand to fill the joints tight and also helps the sand harden. Sweeping the excess sand off the pavers before wetting the sand is also very important. This prevents the glue that is in the sand from smearing the surface of the pavers. Most importantly, applying a good urethane sealer will further help the sand to harden and prevent ants from digging into the paver joints and weeds from growing on patios.
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