Work through it in one order: how the area will be used, then the format, then the surface finish, then the colour. Use sets the specification the paver has to meet, and it is the decision you cannot revisit once the pavers are down. Colour is where most people start, and it is the one a sample board settles in an afternoon. Well Laid Paving Perth lays patios, alfrescos and courtyards in Morley, Innaloo, Victoria Park, Warwick, Osborne Park and Karrinyup, and settles all four before anything is ordered — see patio and alfresco paving in Perth.
What specification does a patio paver actually have to meet?
Less than a driveway paver, and a table says so. The Concrete Masonry Association of Australia’s Guide to Specifying (MA57, December 2010), reproducing Table 2.8 of AS/NZS 4455.2, sets the residential pedestrians-only category — its own worked examples are paths, patios and outdoor areas — at a minimum characteristic breaking load of 2 kN and a minimum work size thickness of 40 mm for concrete pavers.
MA57 recommends stepping up to the pedestrian-and-light-vehicles units — 3 kN and 40 mm for pavers, 7 kN and 50 mm for flags — where vehicle entry cannot be prevented. That covers the side patio a trailer gets reversed onto. A driveway is different again, and we lay 60 mm across the whole of it: how a brick driveway is built so it stays flat. Clay units sit under AS/NZS 4455 and AS/NZS 4456, so ask which declared figures apply to the paver in front of you.
Stone or porcelain: what is actually different?
Provenance and consistency. Natural stone is quarried, so colour, thickness and face vary unit to unit and no two pavers match exactly. Porcelain is manufactured to a written specification and repeats. ISO 13006:2018 (third edition, September 2018) places dry-pressed tiles absorbing 0.5% or less of their mass in water in Group BIa, the low-absorption class most outdoor porcelain is sold against.
That one number carries most of porcelain’s case on a patio. A unit taking up almost no water is hard to stain and gives salt little to work with, which matters where drinks get spilled and pot plants get watered. Natural stone is porous by comparison and shows what lands on it. The trade-off is character: a quarried floor varies in a way a printed face imitates.
What porcelain does not do is stay cooler because it is porcelain. Surface temperature is mostly colour and shade — the evidence is in which pavers stay coolest underfoot in a Perth summer.
Which natural stone suits which part of a Perth garden?
Match the stone to the traffic it will take. Granite and bluestone handle the hammering; limestone and travertine suit the pale barefoot areas people entertain on; sandstone belongs where there is little or no traffic at all. That last one is worth reading twice, because sandstone is usually chosen on looks alone.
| Stone | Where it earns its place | Where it does not |
|---|---|---|
| Limestone and marble | Clean, minimalist patios and paths. Limestone is unobtrusive against a large back yard and trims neatly around a deck or as stepping stones. | Porous, so it marks. Keep acidic cleaners off it. |
| Travertine | Pale and comfortable underfoot, which is why it turns up around alfrescos and pools. French pattern suits a large open area. | Porous like limestone, so it stains readily. |
| Granite | Dense and strong. The pick for high-traffic patios and paths that have to stay sharp. | Dark granites get hot in open sun. |
| Bluestone | Robust under heavy foot or tyre traffic, and versatile to lay — fan or herringbone, or as stepping stones. | Its tone is fixed and dark; it will not carry a pale scheme. |
| Sandstone | A trim along a garden bed, or an area with the least traffic on it. | A softer stone that will not suit high traffic and pressure areas. Not where furniture drags or wheels turn. |
Paver or flag: how big should a patio unit be?
There is a line and it sits at 0.08 m². MA57 defines a paver as a solid unit with a gross plan area of 0.08 m² or less, and a flag as a large-format solid unit above that. A 600 × 600 mm tile is 0.36 m², so it is a flag, and the standard asks more of it: 5 kN minimum characteristic breaking load for residential pedestrian use, against a paver’s 2 kN.
Flatness is the other large-format problem. MA57 deems flags satisfactory with bow no greater than 2.5 mm convex and 1.5 mm concave, measured to AS/NZS 4456.19 — small on paper, plainly visible as lippage across a 600 mm face. Big formats need a flatter, better-compacted base, and they punish one that is not.
Joints are the surprise. For residential pedestrian pavers MA57 gives the dimensional deviation category as DP0: no requirement. No plan or height tolerance applies at that level, so how even your joint lines look is down to the product and the person laying it.
How slip-resistant does a patio paver need to be?
Ask for a classification, not an adjective. AS 4586-2013, amended in 2017, classifies new pedestrian surface materials P0 to P5 by wet pendulum test, with P5 the highest, and MA57 points to that same standard for slip resistance class. Standards Australia’s handbook HB 198:2014, published 16 June 2014, then recommends minimums by location, putting external wet areas including pool surrounds at P4.
A roofed alfresco that stays dry sets a lower bar than the strip between a back door and a pool. Yards selling into commercial work hold the test report, so ask for the classification in writing, and treat a gloss face on anything that gets wet as a decision you will live with barefoot.
Does the ground under the patio change the choice?
It changes the base every time and, on the coast, it changes the unit. Perth’s metro ground runs from Spearwood sand over shallow limestone in the north-west to Guildford Formation clay along the Swan — what’s under your paving in Perth. Clay moves seasonally, so large-format flags are the least forgiving thing to put over it.
In the coastal strip — Scarborough, City Beach, Cottesloe — salt is the extra load, and MA57 defines salt attack resistance as determined to AS/NZS 4456.10. Ask for that figure near the beach.
Why a paved patio can be used the day it is finished
Because nothing has to cure. Poured concrete must be left to gain strength before it takes traffic; a segmental patio is finished the moment the joint sand has been vibrated in and the excess swept off, and it takes furniture and bare feet that afternoon. Where a date is driving the job — a party, a pool handover, a house going to market — that is the whole argument.
The same construction is why one damaged unit is a repair rather than a re-do. MA57 notes that concrete segmental pavements can be repeatedly lifted and re-laid, and areas rehabilitated without purchasing a new surface. A cracked slab offers neither. Order spares with the job: matching a discontinued range in five years is what defeats people.
What to ask the paving yard before you order
Six questions, all answerable from a data sheet by a yard selling a properly specified product. They are the difference between buying a paver and buying a photograph of one, and none of them requires you to know anything about paving. If the figures cannot be produced, that is the answer to a different question.
- Which MA57 row does this unit meet — breaking load in kN, work size thickness in millimetres?
- What is its AS 4586 slip classification, in writing?
- What is the abrasion index? MA57 sets no abrasion criteria for residential pavers, so one has to be specified to the supplier.
- Is salt attack resistance to AS/NZS 4456.10 declared, if the job is near the coast?
- For flags, what is the bow, measured to AS/NZS 4456.19?
- Is the range current, and how many spares should we hold?
The answers move the quote as much as the area does, which is the other half of the conversation: what paving costs per square metre in Perth. We allow 10% for cutting waste on a patio.
Talk to Marc before you order the pavers
Tell us where the sun lands, whether the area is roofed, whether anything with wheels can reach it, and who will cross it barefoot. Those four answers narrow the shortlist faster than a showroom does, and Marc factors all of them into the quote. Well Laid Paving Perth is family-run and works across the Perth metro, Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 5:00pm. Call 0448 440 229 or get a free patio quote, see the patio paving photo gallery, and read how we approach patio and alfresco paving in Perth.
Sources checked: August 2026.