Part H · the register

Protect the Front Walk Pavers on a Kirkwood Roof Job

Brick and paver walks take ladder feet, pallets and foot traffic on roof day. Here is what to ask each roofer to put in writing first.

A Kirkwood front walk is usually brick, flagstone or concrete pavers set in sand, and it runs between the street and the front door, which is where a roof crew tends to stage. On roof day the walk carries ladder feet, shingle pallets, tear-off debris bags and people going up and down all day. None of that does much to the roof itself, but it can shift pavers, crack a mortar joint or push a loose brick out of its bed. Most roof bids leave the walk out of the scope entirely, so this is a question to raise before you pick a start date.

Town roofing

Kirkwood's older houses often have front walks laid decades ago with little base under them. The freeze thaw cycle works on those joints every winter, so a walk that looks level in October may already have a low spot that a ladder foot or a loaded wheelbarrow will find. Newer walks sit on a compacted base and handle weight better, but the edging is usually the weak point. A paver that has lost its edge restraint will tilt when someone steps on the corner, and sand-set brick is the first to move.

Ask the roofer to walk the front path with you before the ladder comes off the truck. Take a phone and photograph each run of the walk, including the joints, the low spots and any brick that already rocks under your foot. Those photos are what separate a paver that was already shifting from one the crew moved. Keep them with the date visible, because the photo set is the only record of what the walk looked like before the first nail.

The same walk can carry more than one kind of traffic on a single job. Crew members come and go through the front door when the back is blocked, the magnet sweep runs over the lawn, and deliveries arrive at the curb. Each of those paths adds a little more wear, so the photos should cover the whole route from the curb to the front step, not only the spot where the ladder is expected to stand.

Where the crew puts its weight

A ladder is not heavy, but a ladder leg set on a single paver edge concentrates the load on a small area. Most crews set the feet on the lawn beside the walk or on the edge of the walk itself. Ask the roofer where each ladder will stand and whether stand boards or ladder stabilizers will go under the feet. A board spreads the load across a wider area, and it costs the roofer almost nothing to use one.

The shingle pallet is the heaviest thing that comes onto the front yard. A full pallet of asphalt shingles weighs far more than a person, and it will sink a sand-set paver if it sits on one spot for an afternoon. Ask where the pallet will land. A good answer names a spot on the drive or the lawn with a board or plywood underneath it, not a spot on the walk. If the answer is that the truck will unload at the curb and the bundles will be carried to the roof by hand, ask how many trips the walk will see in a single day and whether the crew will use a path that avoids the pavers.

Debris is the quieter problem. Tear-off material includes nails, granule-heavy shingle scraps and sometimes old underlayment that drags grit across the surface. Grit under a foot or a wheel grinds the joint sand loose over time. Ask what the crew does with debris before the end of the day, and whether the magnet sweep will run over the walk as well as the lawn and the drive.

What it costs

The walk is outside the roof, so it is often left out of the roof price. That does not mean the repair is free. If a paver cracks, a joint washes out or a brick is pushed out of line, the cost is the cost of resetting that section. That means lifting the affected pavers, checking and rebuilding the base, reinstalling the edge restraint, re-sanding the joints and compacting the surface. A short run of walk can take a half day of labor for a mason or a landscaper, and nobody on the roof crew will price that for you unless the bid says so.

Compare two kinds of bid. In one, the roofer says the walk will be protected and nothing more is said. In the other, the roofer lists a protection line that names the boards under the ladder feet, the board or plywood under the pallet, the path the crew will use, and who is responsible for damage the crew causes. The second bid tells you what the roofer has priced and what they will answer for. The first bid gives you nothing you can check. Neither one fixes an old low spot that was already there, which is why the walk photos matter more than any single line on the proposal.

If the walk needs reset work, the roof contract is the wrong place to bury it. Ask whether that work is a separate job, how it would be priced by the run or by the square foot, and whether the same crew or a separate mason would do it. Get the answer in writing with a date before the roof starts. Asking after the walk has already cracked leaves you with a dispute and no written number to point to.

What to ask

Put these questions to each roofer, and ask for the answers to appear on the written proposal:

1. Where will each ladder stand, and will stand boards go under the feet?
2. Where will the shingle pallet land, and what goes under it?
3. Will the crew carry bundles across the front walk, and how many trips are expected in a day?
4. Does the magnet sweep cover the walk, the lawn and the drive, and on which days?
5. Who photographs the front walk before the first day, and who keeps those photos afterward?
6. If a paver cracks or moves, who resets it, and is that work included in the price or billed separately?

Each answer should be specific. A reply such as "we will be careful" is not an answer. A roofer who cannot name a spot on the lawn or a board size is telling you the walk was not thought through before the crew was booked. Keos is not involved in any of this, and the homeowner's own contractor for walk work may need to be looped in once the roof date is set.

Walk the route with the crew lead

Once you have chosen a roofer, ask for the crew lead to walk the route with you the day before the job starts. Ask them to point to each ladder spot, the pallet spot, the dumpster line and the route the bundles will take from the truck to the roof. Ask them to show you the walk's low spots so that both of you agree on what was already there. A written note with those spots marked on a simple sketch is worth more than a verbal promise on the phone.

On the morning of work, check the walk again before the crew starts. If a paver is already loose, say so to the crew lead and take a photo before anyone steps on that section. If the walk is mortar-set brick rather than sand-set pavers, the crew should not be running heavy loads across it at all, so ask for the bundles to be staged on the lawn side and carried around to the back or side of the house.

After the roof is done

Walk the path again once the crew has left and the lawn has been raked. Compare what you see with the morning photos. Look at the joints, the edge restraints and any brick that has moved since morning. If something has changed, tell the roofer in writing the same day, with a dated photo, and ask the crew lead to reply in writing. Keep the whole thread in one place so the record stays in order, not spread across a stack of calls and texts.