Techo-Bloc Pavers: An Honest Review From the Lowcountry's Certified Installer

Somebody throws out a brand name during a conversation about your driveway and you’re supposed to know what it is or what it means. You’ve gotten three quotes that all have different pavers listed on them, and you’re not sure how to tell whether one is better stone or just a more expensive version of the same thing. That’s a tough spot to be in when you’re about to spend five figures on your backyard. You want to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth.

My name is Randy Thompson, and I’m the founder of All-Out Hardscapes LLC and a certified Techo-Bloc Pro installer, which is Techo-Bloc’s installer certification. It’s not a rank no matter how it gets dressed up. It’s not a common thing to have down here in our area. We are the only certified Techo-Bloc Pro installer in the Lowcountry. In 10 years we’ve built more than 150 patios, walkways, and outdoor living spaces across Savannah and the Coastal Lowcountry, including ones on Wilmington Island and in Savannah Quarters, and Techo-Bloc is the brand we use on nearly all of them.

So no, I’m not a neutral party. I definitely have a brand choice. I’m certified on Techo-Bloc, I buy from them, and I set their product for a living. But my opinion does hold weight because I’m the one who answers for it when a homeowner is unhappy, and I’d rather tell you when Techo-Bloc is the wrong product for a job than sell you a patio you didn’t really want.

Is Techo-Bloc Worth the Money on Your Patio?

Yes, for anything Techo-Bloc makes, it is worth the money. That’s the whole thing, and it comes with a qualifier from a contractor who truly loves the brand. Where Techo-Bloc doesn’t make the product a job actually needs, we go somewhere else, simple as that.

So the rule at our company is short. If Techo-Bloc makes a product that solves the job, that’s the product we are going to use. Where they don’t make it, meaning natural stone, porcelain and other tile, and flagstone, we source it from somebody who does. One brand for everything they make, something else only where they don’t.

Here’s why that matters while you’re building your list of what to look for. When a company installs one brand by default, you can go look at ten of their finished jobs and know exactly what yours will look like because it’s the same product you will be getting. When there is no default brand, every job is a wildcard, and the photo you’re looking at could be built out of something that the crew only did for that one job. You’re evaluating a picture, not the actual product.

What We Get Out of Recommending Techo-Bloc

Start with the certification. Techo-Bloc trained and vetted us against their installation standards, and that credential is called Techo-Bloc Pro. It’s just one certification. There’s no ranking or levels, and anybody who presents it as a ranking is not being truthful. It’s uncommon in this market, which is part of why homeowners here have a hard time comparing paver brands at all.

Then the relationship. We always deal with Techo-Bloc directly instead of through middlemen, and we talk all the time. On a job that’s a huge advantage, because when a color runs different from one production batch to the next, or a unit is back-ordered in the middle of a build, we have somebody to call instead of having to go through some customer service nonsense. It’s also a bias. Think of it the same way you would any review written by the person who sells whatever they are reviewing.

One more piece we want pulled apart, because it gets glossed over a lot. The warranty that comes with the product is the manufacturer’s warranty on the product. It is not a warranty on our labor. If a unit fails, that has to do with the manufacturer and the actual stone, not the installation. If the base we built settles or fails, then that is on us to fix, and we have our own warranty on our work, which is a completely separate guarantee from us. When somebody says the patio will last a lifetime, they are mixing up two things that should stay separate, which does not help you at all if you ever actually need warranty work done.

What Am I Actually Paying For Compared to Local Block?

It’s helpful to understand the two things that determine the cost of the surface of your patio before you get a quote. The first thing is how the material is manufactured. What is the mix, the density, the finish, and how closely one pallet of stone matches the next one. The second is whether the material can be set on a stone base with sand in the joints and no mortar anywhere (this is called dry-laid), or whether it has to be wet-set, meaning mortared down onto a poured concrete slab the same way a bathroom floor goes down. Dry-laid is a base and a surface. Wet-set is a base, a slab, and a surface. Those are two different types of projects and they won’t cost the same.

On the manufacturing side, Techo-Bloc is one of the industry leaders, and the quality of the stone against what the yards around here stock is light-years ahead. That’s not some slogan we picked up at a trade show. It’s what we notice when we are cutting it, setting it, and standing on it. With that quality comes cost, just like the old saying “you get what you pay for.”

Here’s something that a lot of people don’t know. We have a guy who spent 15 years in this market working for pool companies and handling brick, and he’d never heard of Techo-Bloc. That’s not his fault, but it does give you a clue on how these markets work and how they are different depending on where you live. What gets installed in a place is really up to what the local supply yards have in stock, and yards only stock what installers buy all the time, and installers buy what they have always bought. The default paver in a market has more to do with supply and demand than with the quality of the product. So if you’re building your comparison list out of whatever is sitting in the local yard, you’re only looking at one small set of materials, not the best materials available.

Which Techo-Bloc Line Is Right for Your Project?

Most of the patio jobs in Savannah come down to three main lines. If you want a full custom design it comes straight to us, one-on-one. We are an encyclopedia for pavers, and that hour you spend with us is the cheapest part of the project. For everything else, here’s how we choose what we use for installation.

Blue 60 in HD2

Blue 60 is the name of the paver. HD2 is the Techo-Bloc line it’s in, and the HD2 is the one with all the vibrant colors. They look like actual colors instead of a flat gray. It’s our most-installed paver, and it is the first thing we always show our customers.

But it comes at a price. Upgrading from a lesser block to Blue 60 in HD2 usually runs about $1,000 on a typical patio, and for that thousand dollars you get ten times the quality. That is the easiest upgrade call on almost every job we quote, and we would make the same decision on our own houses.

Villagio

Villagio is what we prefer for walkways and pathways because of the geometry. It can be laid in any design, any radius, any way you want it, without cutting a single piece.

That is a big deal, because every time you cut a stone on a job it creates smaller pieces, which have less edge holding them against the other pavers around them. That grip between the pieces is what makes a dry-laid surface feel like a solid slab instead of a thousand little loose parts. A curved walkway laid in a system built to turn without cuts has fewer weak points from the start. It installs faster, and it looks intentional, not chopped up and pieced together.

Eva

Eva is the budget line. When a homeowner is working with a strict budget, Eva is what we sell them, and we love this product.

It’s a real Techo-Bloc product held to their standards, and it’s so much better than just going for the cheapest thing in the yard. What it doesn’t have is color range and presence next to the HD2 line. If the budget is limited and the patio is the goal, that is a fair trade and we will tell you that upfront every time.

How Do I See the Color on My Own House Before I Commit?

We get asked this a lot, and it has a real answer now. We carry the Techo-Bloc book. It shows every paver and every color they make. Before we ever get out of the truck, we have been through whatever photos you sent us and flagged the pages showing the pavers close to what you showed us. When we walk up, it is already open to your options.

There’s a scan code on the pages. You point your phone at it and click “view in my space,” pick the color, and hold the phone up at your house. It is the same thing the furniture stores let you do when you visualize a couch in your living room using their app before you buy it. You stop looking at a paver on a white page under showroom light and see what it will look like against your brick, your siding, and your roof, in your light.

That’s why it matters while you’re still deciding. A color that looks amazing in a book can look very different next to your house. Seeing it on the actual wall is the difference between choosing a paver confidently and just guessing. The book is our menu, and you get to order off it knowing all the tricks.

Where Techo-Bloc Is the Wrong Call

There are three material families Techo-Bloc does not make, and if your job calls for one of them, no amount of certification will make Techo-Bloc the right answer. Here is what falls outside their catalog:

• Natural stone: Travertine, sandstone, slate, and marble, which is quarried material bought through a stone supplier, not something that is manufactured.
• Porcelain and other tile: This has to be wet-set in mortar over a poured concrete slab.
• Flagstone: Irregular by nature, and it gets fit piece by piece on site.

The tile one is the biggest fork in the road, and it is worth understanding before you see it in a picture and fall in love. Tile has to be wet-set, so there has to be concrete under it. At that point you are not building a patio on a stone base anymore, you are pouring a slab and then tiling it. It’s a very different type of job with a different timeline and a different cost.

Natural stone is also its own whole conversation. We have had it priced at $7 to $11 a square foot for the material alone, not including the cost to install it, and stone pricing has gone up on us recently. There are backyards where stone is exactly the right call and the homeowner should spend the extra money on it. We will source it and we will build it. But we won’t pretend that a concrete paver and a slab of quarried stone are the same product.

And here is the thing we would want a stranger to tell us if we were the ones buying. The brand stamped on the paver is not the reason a patio lasts. It’s very important to understand that what is underneath it is what makes it last. We have watched good product laid over a bad base fail exactly the way you would expect, and that’s not what a product warranty is for. If you’re comparing quotes and the only difference you can find is the paver name, you need more information.