How to Enhance Dull and Faded Pavers

With Spring right around the corner, now is a great time to start thinking about which sealer you want to use for your pavers. Whether you are looking to seal your paver patio, driveway, or walkway, there are a few great sealer options, depending on what you are looking for. 

If you love the look of your unsealed pavers, and don’t want to change the look or color, a penetrating sealer is the best sealer to use. Penetrating sealers, like the Armor SX5000 WB, are designed to work entirely below the surface without changing the look or color of your pavers. Sealing your pavers with a penetrating sealer will help to increase the life of your pavers by reducing damage and deterioration caused by water absorption. 

Penetrating sealers are great for protecting your pavers without enhancing them, but if you are looking to enhance your pavers, old or new, then what you really want is an acrylic sealer. Acrylic sealers are designed to enhance your pavers. While they do penetrate in order to bond, they are designed to change the look, and sometimes the color, of the pavers. The sealer you choose will determine what the pavers look like once sealed. Here are a few great sealers to use if you are looking to enhance your pavers:

• Armor AR350 – This is a great sealer to use if you are looking to enhance the with a wet look, and protect them with a visible low gloss finish. 
• Armor AR500 – This is a great sealer to use if you are looking to enhance the pavers with a wet look, and protect them with a visible higher gloss finish.
• Armor WL550 – This is a great sealer to use if you are looking to enhance the pavers with a wet look, but don’t want a visible film or coating.  
• Armor WB15 – This is a great sealer to use if you want to enhance the pavers with faint low gloss finish, but don’t want the darkened wet look.
• Armor WB25 –  This is a great sealer to use if you want to enahnce the pavers with a higher gloss finish, but don’t want the darkened wet look.

Wet look sealers, like the Armor AR350, Armor AR500, and WL550 are the most popular options for paver sealers simply because most people looking to enhance their pavers are trying to achieve a similiar look to being wet. Those particular sealers are also solvent based acrylics and solvent based acrylics are known to be easier to repair and easier to maintain. Ultimately, you have to decide on what you want your pavers to look like once sealed, and what your preference is in regards to water or solvent based sealers. 

If you are looking to enahnce your pavers with a gloss, it is important to understand how porosity impacts actual gloss level. If you apply the same sealer to a poured concrete driveway and a paver driveway, the gloss level will be higher on the poured concrete driveway because the pored concrete driveway won’t be as porous as the pavers. Pavers behave much like a spong and will soak up a lot of material. The more material it soaks up, the deeper it penenetrates. Surface film is what achieves gloss level so if the material is being pulled through the pavers, there won’t be much of a surface film left. For this reason, it is imporant to apply light coats, and space the coats out 24 hours. This will allow each coat to cure, forcing the new coat to remain on the surface. If your pavers haven’t been sealed in a while, or haven’t ever been sealed, it may take an additional coat to achieve a higher level of gloss. It is also imporant to apply a test sample on your pavers so you know what your pavers will look like sealed with that particular product.