Permeable Pavers

Permeable interlocking concrete pavement is designed to be as porous as possible, allowing water to adequately flow into an aggregate base, preventing flooding.

Commercial Solutions

We are proud of the reputation we’ve built as one of the leading commercial paving companies operating anywhere in the Carolinas or the surrounding areas today.

Municipal Solutions

Creating an innovative sustainable and ecologically friendly environment through low impact development, reducing major problems such as flooding and erosion.

Residential Solutions

Breathe new life into an outdoor area of your home using pavers, brick, stone, granite or permeables. We’ll guide you through creating the space of your dreams.

Permeable Solutions

Control storm water before, during and after extreme weather events as well as improve overall water quality thanks to the imbedded filtering system with Permeable Solutions.

Value Engineering

During projects, we provide better, more organized processes and procedures in an effort to better eliminate unnecessary costs that are discovered within the industry.

Products

Explore our paver products for concrete pavers, retaining walls, permeable pavers, sealers, joint stabilizers & accessories, clay pavers, natural stone pavers, slab & roof systems & porcelain tiles.

Commercial Solutions Blog

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A Beginner’s Guide to Hardscaping: Retaining Walls

Commercial Solutions

Retaining walls don’t usually draw attention to themselves. As Gardenista notes, “When a retaining wall does it job right, you may not even know it’s there. Think of retaining walls as support hose for sloped terrain: they hold everything in […]

If it’s time for hardscape design, it’s time to call Unit Paving. For nearly three decades, we’ve helped homeowners, businesses, and municipalities in North and South Carolina with a range of residential and commercial hardscaping needs. Our clientele know us […]

Paving projects, whether they’re residential or commercial, aren’t as simple as Unit Paving Inc makes them look. We take as much care in the planning that precedes a project, and the cleanup that follows, as we do with the many […]

When you cater to a rarefied clientele — and you also want to compete for a fair share of event and wedding bookings — it doesn’t pay for your grounds to look unkempt or outdated. Small investments, like investing in […]

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If it’s time for hardscape design, it’s time to call Unit Paving. For nearly three decades, we’ve helped homeowners, businesses, and municipalities in North and South Carolina with a range of residential and commercial hardscaping needs. Our clientele know us for our extensive — and often creative — use of concrete pavers in our projects. If you’re new to this material, here’s what you should know.

What is Hardscaping?

Let’s start by establishing what hardscaping is: the other half (with softscapes, or the growing material used in a given space) of the landscaping equation. It’s the manmade portion of your landscaping, encompassing everything from your driveway and footpath to retaining walls, fire pits, and much more.

Hardscaping and Sustainable Design

When it’s properly done — with the right design and materials — hardscaping is a key part of sustainable landscaping. Whether you’re hardscaping a yard, a park, or a pedestrian plaza in a municipal downtown, hardscaping with concrete pavers is a good way to reduce runoff, pollution, and soil erosion. It conserves finite resources and preserves the natural environment.

Advantages of Concrete Pavers

Concrete paving products come with a number of built-in advantages.

Variety

When most people think of pavers, they think of bland expanses of lookalike bricks. Unit Paving has worked with concrete pavers long enough to know, appreciate, and embrace the diverse options available to homeowners and town planners alike. Shape, color, and texture choices can be varied for function and beauty alike.

Simplicity

Concrete pavers are simple to install thanks to their ease of installation, minimal site preparation, and minimal use of added equipment. The same cannot be said of traditional paving materials like asphalt and concrete.

Strength

Concrete and asphalt are impervious structures. They’re also inflexible. That can have some advantages, but there’s also a built-in drawback that you’ll have noticed if you’ve ever driven over a buckled surface undermined by rushing water, hit a pothole, or noticed the flooding they encourage. Concrete pavers allow water to pass through to the soil, they expand and contract thanks to their joint structure, and their ease of replacement means that repairs can be done quickly and easily.

Flood Control

Whether you’re a homeowner whose yard pools with water because of poor drainage, or a municipality that deals with flooding after anything more severe than light drizzle, you’ll appreciate the fact that concrete pavers require less drainage than other paved surfaces.

Long-Term Savings

Concrete and asphalt surfaces often require extensive — and expensive — maintenance, as well as frequent repairs. To be clear, all paved surfaces require maintenance, but concrete pavers require less of it.

Surface maintenance of concrete pavers is simple, and there’s less of it. When repairs are needed — which isn’t often, but is always a possibility — they can often be done by one or two people in a matter of minutes, minimizing disruption to traffic and everyday life.

Answering Concrete Paver Questions

It’s impossible to answer all of the frequently asked paver questions in blog form. What we’ve addressed here may have reinforced information you already knew, or may have left you with as many questions as answers. Unit Paving is happy to take the time to consider the scope of your project and answer the questions that matter most to you. So contact us by phone at (704) 412-4463 or visit us online to schedule a concrete paver consultation.

Paving projects, whether they’re residential or commercial, aren’t as simple as Unit Paving Inc makes them look. We take as much care in the planning that precedes a project, and the cleanup that follows, as we do with the many concerns that take place as the project unfolds. If you’re wondering how to choose the right North Carolina paving contractor, there are questions you can ask to verify their claims, the quality of their work, and your expectations for the process.

What Can You Tell Me About Your Company?

This question encompasses a number of other questions — how long a company has been in business, their licensure and insurance, the types of clients they’ve served, the types of projects they’ve undertaken, and the challenges they’ve faced and overcome on the job site, to name just a few. A reputable paving company will tell you all of this and more, usually without much prompting; after all, they should take pride in their paving projects.

What Do Your Clients Say About Your Work?

References matter, and should be appropriate to the type of project being undertaken. If you’re a homeowner, it doesn’t matter how many country clubs or stadiums for which we’ve done work. If, on the other hand, you’re a municipality, you’ll want to know that the same care and attention we’ve lavished on our smaller projects can scale to the needs of your town or city (the answer, incidentally, is yes — and we’ll show you the proof).

What Does Our Project Involve?

Each project brings with it unique opportunities and challenges. You know the opportunities, but there’s a degree to which you’re looking to your paving contractor to identify and address the potential problems that could arise. The more time and thought that goes into planning, permitting, and project management early on, the less potential for unwanted surprises and overruns later.

Who is Our Point of Contact?

Communication is vital regardless of the scale of the project, or how well it’s been planned. Our work can uncover issues ranging from topographic challenges to minor annoyances like tree roots, unexpected soil erosion, or problems with the structures around which we’re working. We’ll want to know who to take these issues up with, and you’ll want to know that there’s someone on standby to address your questions, concerns, or potential changes as the project unfolds.

Are Permeable Pavers Viable for My Project?

This is a common concern for homeowners, business owners, and our municipal clients alike. Our paver installations and hardscape designs have proven adaptable to a very wide array of uses, but we assume nothing. We will consider your needs, concerns, logistical and technical issues, and a range of other factors to make sure that we’re suggesting the correct solution to your paving problems.

What Will This Cost?

We understand. You want your project to stay on time and on, or under, budget. We share the same goal. To that end, we will provide you with a comprehensive written estimate based on the scope of your project, as well as asking questions of our own to ensure that the process is a smooth one; we want to exceed your expectations rather than simply meeting them.

Done right, a commercial paving project is complex. Find the right North Carolina paving contractor, however, and that complexity falls on the contractors’ shoulders instead of yours. If you have questions or concerns about a paving project, we invite you to consult with Unit Paving Inc today!

When you cater to a rarefied clientele — and you also want to compete for a fair share of event and wedding bookings — it doesn’t pay for your grounds to look unkempt or outdated. Small investments, like investing in a new patio area or hardscape design, can pay handsome dividends for country clubs. In the Carolinas, Unit Paving has leveraged our years of experience to add a modern, yet classic, touch to many area country clubs.

Maintain Historical and Architectural Consistency

Especially in older country clubs, the clubhouse is more than a building. It’s the center of gravity, acting as the anchor for the club’s full range of activities. Clubhouses usually come with a story and a sense of history, and the country club’s hardscaping design should both reflect and reinforce that historicity. Permeable pavers are a smart choice in this instance, since they can be designed to harmonize with a number of architectural styles.

As a codicil to the above, we also suggest harmonizing the landscaping with the heritage of the club, or its founding members. An English garden, for instance, could be an appropriate homage to a country club with continental roots. If, on the other hand, your club’s lineage consists of or caters to hunters or travelers, a more rustic touch or an Asian flourish might be called for. Furthermore, there are many ways — especially the creative use of local hardscape materials and fauna — to put a local twist on an international look.

Soften Your Geometry

Straight lines and sharp corners can seem severe and uninviting, especially if used to excess. Embrace curvature! One advantage of permeable interlocking concrete pavers is that they’re easy to adapt to any number of shapes; furthermore, they can be easier to adapt to irregular topography than asphalt, and less complex in some respects than concrete used under the same circumstances.

Remix Your Hardscaping and Softscaping

One thing we’ve learned over time: there’s both an art, and a science, to balancing your softscaping (the growing, organic matter that makes up your landscaping) and your hardscaping (pavers, retaining walls, and other inorganic features). The lush greenery of many country clubs is a source of beauty and point of pride, but a carefully-planned hardscape can extend an area that is both useful and durable, while also being lower maintenance than a green surface. An added perk: hardscaping is sustainable, and can help with water management and drainage; as such, it deserves a closer look if you’re coping with these issues.

Don’t Forget Bluescaping

While green spaces and hardscaping matter to any country club, there’s another component that can pull together outdoor spaces: water features. Ponds and fountains help to deal with summer heat, but they also create oases of tranquility in nearly any environment.

“Interiorize” Your Exterior

Borrowing a page from the interior design handbook can transform outdoor spaces. Rather than thinking of your patio area as a unified whole, mentally (and architecturally) compartmentalize. Use a creative mix of hardscaping and landscaped features to create thematically diverse areas that can provide opportunities that match your members’ desire for congregation, solitude, or a space in which to cut loose.

The country club is, in some ways, a uniquely American phenomenon. And while many have deep roots in history, the challenge facing clubs’ ownership and boards of directors is twofold: honoring that past, while adapting to changing times and tastes. Contact Unit Paving to draw on our quarter century of hardscaping design and commercial paving experience and make over your country club hardscaping.