How Long Does It Take to Build a Patio in Savannah?

Once you know what a patio will cost, you need to know how long your backyard is going to be a noisy construction zone. Your family uses the backyard. Maybe you have a BBQ planned, or you have a dog who goes out into the backyard to potty. You’ve talked to quite a few installers, and it seems like the timelines they give you are all over the place, even though they are supposedly for the same patio, so you really have no idea how long it’s going to take.

My name is Randy Thompson. I founded All Out Hardscapes & Lighting Solutions, and we build patios and outdoor living spaces all over Savannah and the Coastal Lowcountry. That includes Wilmington Island and Savannah Quarters out to Pooler and Richmond Hill. We’ve built over 150 patios, walkways, and outdoor living spaces, and I’m the only Techo-Pro certified installer in the Lowcountry.

I’m going to give you real numbers from real jobs we’ve done, not inflated numbers that just sound good. That includes the extra week I always add to the timeline on big jobs, just in case we discover something nobody knew about when we start digging.

How Long Will My Patio Actually Take?

For most people the build takes days, not weeks or months. A small patio is done in a day to a day and a half. A mid-size patio takes two to three days. A larger patio takes about a week to a week and a half, and a big custom backyard with old concrete to remove and a lot of cut work can go for two weeks. The smallest jobs we ever do are done in four or five hours.

So just to recap, there are two separate timelines. The first is how long until we can actually start the job. As soon as we have a down payment, we put you on the schedule, and that date is usually about a month out, but it can be a bit longer during busy times. The other timeline is how long we are in your yard, which starts as soon as we show up to start working. We will be able to tell you which timeline range you’re in when we walk your property, because it depends on a few things.

What Makes My Patio Take Longer or Go Faster?

The time it takes to build a patio in the Savannah area is based on the same logic regardless of who builds it. There are five things that decide whether your job will be at the shorter or the longer end:

• Size and scope: A bigger patio means more digging, more compacting, and more pavers.
• What is under the ground: Soft spots and surprises in the ground add time to the job, and nobody knows for sure what’s down there until the digging starts.
• Old concrete that has to come out: On one custom backyard in Chatham County, the old concrete went way out into the yard, and we had to chip out all of it before we could start the job.
• Custom cut work: Curves, borders, and tight fit-up take a lot of measuring and cutting. On that same job with all the old concrete, we poured new concrete, measured and fit every piece, and cut all of the border stone to size.
• Rain: Wet ground stops excavation and compaction, so sustained rain can add time to the job because things have to dry out before we can continue working.

Where Do the Days Go on a Patio Build?

Laying the pavers is actually the fastest part. Most of the time we are there goes to prep work and things you’ll never see once it’s all done. That time is spent digging out and building the base, which is the layers of crushed stone the pavers sit on. We never rush this part.

We spread the whole layer of #57 stone at once. #57 is clean, large crushed stone with open space between the rocks so water drains through it. We screed it (drag a straight edge across it to make it nice and level), rake it out, and run the compactor, which is a machine that vibrates the stone down tight. Once it’s fully compacted, you could drive a truck on it. Then we put down #789 stone, which is a much smaller crushed stone. Because the pieces are smaller, it rakes out really flat, and then we compact that layer too. Once that’s all done, it’s basically a concrete pad, and the pavers and polymeric sand (a joint sand with a binder that hardens once it gets wet, locking the pavers together) go right on top of it.

Here’s how that process affects your timeline. Each layer has to be spread, leveled, and compacted before the next one goes on, and none of it can be done in the rain. You can’t rush the process or compact wet material, or else the patio looks fine on day one, then settles and breaks later. The time we spend building that base is why you never have to call us back, which means we did our job right. So when a quote promises a big patio in two or three days, ask how much of that time is spent on the base.

How Long Does Each Size of Patio Take?

Here’s a chart of build times from our own jobs, sorted by price, because price goes up and down with the size and complexity of the patio. This is one company’s example. Every factor above, from scope and ground to old concrete, cut work, and rain, can push back the timeline of a job.

The custom Chatham County backyard we mentioned earlier took two weeks on site. That’s with chipping out the old concrete, pouring new concrete, all the measuring and fit-up, and cutting every piece of border stone. Our machine went in and out of that yard a couple hundred times. When the two weeks were up, everything looked perfect around the patio: no tire marks, no track marks, nothing disturbed whatsoever.

Why Is There an Extra Week in My Estimate?

A $15,000 job usually takes about a week to a week and a half, but we will always tell you to plan on an extra week on top of that. Most jobs hit something in the ground nobody expected when the digging starts. We’d rather give you a date you can count on than have to come back and tell you the job is pushed back.

One job pushed us to make that rule for ourselves. We quoted a backyard at about $26,000 on a two-week timeline, but when we started digging we found an unknown septic tank right in the middle of where the patio was going. The whole thing had to be dug out and removed, and the job ended up costing $32,000. Nobody knew the tank was there, and nobody could see it on a walk-through, which is why we build that extra week into our estimates.

Rain can change that date too, but you’ll know about it before it happens. Usually we’ll call you and say something like, “Hey, we’ve got a little bit of rain coming up, we just want to give you a heads up that we may push the work back a little.” We call every homeowner at least once a week, start to finish, so you are never left wondering where we are or when things will be finished.

Is Our Schedule the Right Fit for Your Deadline?

If you need a patio finished by a date that is only a couple of weeks away, we’re not the right company for you. Our start dates are about a month out once we get the down payment, and we won’t give you a date or a number just to sell the job if it’s not something you can count on.

And if your project is small, there’s not much to plan around. A single-pallet job or a $2,000 to $3,000 patio is in and out in about a day, and waiting for the job to start is the longest part of the whole thing.