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Unilock Driveway & Pavers: The Jacksonville Owner’s Guide
Unilock paver driveway installation in Jacksonville typically runs $7,000 – $18,000 depending on square footage, base condition, and paver series. We stock the full Unilock catalog by request, which means your replacement pavers or edge restraints can usually be on our truck within days, not weeks. Most Jacksonville homeowners discover a problem the same way: a paver has settled into a low spot after heavy rain, an edge row is drifting toward the lawn, or a tree root has lifted a section of the driveway three inches out of grade.
If you’re reading this with a driveway that’s failing in one spot, you don’t necessarily need a full replacement. We match existing Unilock pavers by series, size, and color blend so a repair blends with the original pavement. That’s the part most companies get wrong: they’ll patch with whatever tan paver is on the shelf, and the repair looks like a bandage. We won’t do that.
Which Unilock Models This Applies To
Unilock breaks their product lines into three main families: Estate Series (Rectangular, Courtstone, Copthorne), Town Series (Town Hall, Richcliff, Mattoni), and Traditional Series (Brussels Block, Hollandstone, Bristol Valley). Each series uses different dimensions and surface textures, and they are not interchangeable. A Brussels Block paver is 4″ x 8″ with a tumbled face; a Town Hall paver is a 6″ x 6″ modular with a fine-grain finish. If your driveway was installed a decade ago, the exact model may have shifted names or been discontinued under its original label.
The reliable way to identify what you have is to pull one paver from an edge and check the underside. Unilock stamps many pavers with the series name and mold date. If there’s no stamp, measure the paver in millimeters, not inches. Unilock manufactures in metric. A paver that’s 200mm x 100mm is not the same as a domestic 8″ x 4″, and that difference breaks the joint pattern. We match OEM Unilock pavers whenever the series is still in production. When it’s discontinued, we source quality equivalents that match the module, color blend, and surface profile. We’ll show you the physical paver next to yours before any work starts, because a screen photo doesn’t tell you whether the chamfer edge matches.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your Unilock Driveway & Pavers Is Failing
- Settling or low spots forming at the edges. This usually means the edge restraint, the plastic or metal strip that locks the field together, has failed and the pavers are slowly drifting downhill or outward.
- Standing water pooling after rain. Jacksonville’s summer thunderstorms dump inches in an afternoon. If water sits against the house or garage, the base beneath the pavers is eroding, which leads to more aggressive settling. This is not cosmetic; it pulls water toward your foundation.
- Pavers rocking or clacking when you drive over them. A loose paver usually means the sand bedding has washed out from underneath. In Northeast Florida, that’s common where downspouts discharge directly onto the driveway or where the base was never compacted deep enough.
- Visible cracks through individual pavers along the tire path. Unilock pavers are rated for vehicular traffic, but if the base was underbuilt or the pavers were installed on an inadequate sand bed, tire loads will flex them until they crack.
- Weeds or ant mounds sprouting up through joints. Ants are a real factor in Jacksonville, not a footnote. Fire ants can excavate through polymeric sand in a single season, creating voids that let pavers shift. This is a maintenance reality here that doesn’t show up in the generic paver guides.
See the difference
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After
Before
After
Before
AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
For a repair, you’re looking at materials and labor only, which keeps the cost low. For a full driveway teardown and reinstall on the city’s typical clay-loam soil, the Jacksonville range is $7,000 – $18,000. What moves the number: paver series (Estate and Town series cost more per pallet than Traditional), total square footage, whether the existing base can be salvaged, and whether we need to pull and replace edge restraints.
Here’s what we write into a typical paver driveway scope in Jacksonville:
- Excavation to 8″ – 10″ below finish grade, with unusable soil hauled off
- Crushed concrete or FDOT-grade limerock base, compacted in lifts
- 1″ bedding course of washed, angular sand
- Unilock pavers laid to pattern, with edge restraints pinned every 24″
- Polymeric sand swept into joints and activated
- Written price before any work starts, no allowance line items that quietly grow afterward
Every paver driveway and repair from our crew is covered by the 365-Day Done Right Promise. If a paver settles or a joint washes out within a year of the job, we’re back to fix it.
DIY or Call Us?
You can safely inspect an edge restraint yourself. Walk the perimeter, look for plastic or metal edging that’s cracked or pulled free, and check whether your downspouts dump water onto the driveway surface. Those observations help us quote accurately over the phone.
What we don’t recommend is pulling up a section of pavers and re-bedding them yourself. The dangerous part is rarely the pavers; it’s the base. If you dig into a settling spot and find a void beneath the sand, you’ve now got a cavity that grows every time it rains, and your repair is worse than the original problem. Also, paver replacement jobs involve real weight. A single pallet of Unilock Estate pavers is over 3,000 pounds. Moving that by hand is how backs and toes get hurt.
If you’d rather hand it to us, call (904) 643-6243. We’ll bring samples, match what you have, and write you a price before anything gets moved.
FAQs
A properly installed Unilock driveway with a deep base and good edge restraints lasts 20 to 30 years in Jacksonville’s climate, though the joints may need polymeric sand touched up every 5 to 7 years because our rainfall and ant pressure are harder on the sand than the pavers themselves. Call (904) 643-6243 if you need an assessment of the base under your existing driveway.
Yes, in most cases we can lift a settled section, re-grade the sand bedding, re-compact the base, and relay the original pavers, which costs significantly less than a full driveway rebuild. If the base beneath the pavers has eroded, we’ll explain what that means and write the repair scope in plain language. Call (904) 643-6243 for an exact quote; estimates are free.
A focused repair, such as lifting and re-bedding a settled entry apron, typically happens in one day for a small area, while a full driveway replacement runs 3 to 5 working days depending on the weather and the amount of base work. We schedule around your family’s week and use quiet tools during nap and school hours where possible. Call (904) 643-6243 to put a date on the calendar.
We keep common Traditional Series pavers and edge restraints on hand, and we order Estate and Town series pallets directly through Unilock’s Florida distribution, which means most orders arrive at our yard within a few business days. We’ll match the series, size, and color blend to what’s already in your driveway before we order, so you’re not paying for the wrong paver. Call (904) 643-6243 to confirm your series availability.
If you’ve got a Unilock driveway in Jacksonville that’s settling, cracked, or drifting at the edges, call (904) 643-6243 for a free estimate. We’ll name the paver series we’re matching, name the day the crew can be there, and hand you a written price before any work starts. Name the material, name the day, name the price – then there is nothing left to wonder about.
One note for clarity: Elmstead Remodeling Jacksonville is an independent service provider. We’re not affiliated with Unilock or its distributors. We’re a Cedarwell company, and we also stock and install materials from KraftMaid, Cambria, and Silestone. What that means for you is named-brand materials on every project, with manufacturer warranties you can look up yourself.
We treat every driveway project like it leads to your front door, because it does. Drop cloths on any interior staging area, shoe covers at the door, a photo of the clean-up before the crew leaves. Written by Graham Stein, who learned construction at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College and spent nearly two decades on residential and commercial projects across Southern California before bringing that same patient approach to Jacksonville driveways and remodels. We work the way you’d want a neighbor to: carefully, with the details named, and with a phone answered by a live person when you call.
Written by Graham Stein, Owner, Elmstead Remodeling Jacksonville at Elmstead Remodeling Jacksonville, serving Jacksonville and nearby areas.
