Is any paver sealer made to go on damp pavers right after cleaning?

ICPI writes no rule that covers every sealer on this question, and its own sentence is hedged. Tech Spec 5 says “The cleaned surface must be completely dry prior to applying most sealers.” The word that matters is most. The rest are answered one product at a time, on each product's own instructions.

Put two of those instructions next to each other and they disagree outright. Seal 'n Lock, a Florida sealer maker, writes in its Super-Wet-Look guide that “Super-Wet can be applied even though the pavers are damp.” SEK-Surebond's data sheet for its SB-1300 sealer says the opposite for that product: “Never try to seal wet or damp surfaces.” Both are telling the truth about their own products.

SEK-Surebond's weather bulletin, TB17, shows that the split can run inside one maker's line: “Select Surebond sealers can be applied to a damp surface or are rain safe in a much shorter period of time”. It does not name them on that page. It sends the reader on with “be sure to read the instructions to learn more”, which is the honest answer to the question this page asks.

The chemistry does not sort the table by itself. Seal 'n Lock describes Super-Wet-Look as a two-part, water based pure urethane sealer; SEK-Surebond's SB-1300 is a water-based acrylic co-polymer, and it is on the other side of the line. Whether a sealer is a urethane or an acrylic, water based or solvent based, the damp-surface answer is read from that product's own label.

The two “most sealers” rows are the general condition, and SEK-Surebond's numbered steps are set out with the numbered site preparation steps.

The labels that rule out a damp surface give their reason in plain words. Techniseal's is that the Protector “could react with moisture and leave a white film on the surface.”

The American Society of Concrete Contractors' Decorative Concrete Council describes the same risk for decorative concrete sealers, which use the same families of chemistry. Its guide says “Applying sealers to wet concrete can cause the surface to “fog up” or “blush”, which will turn it white and/or cause adhesion problems.” Blush is the guide's own word for that haze. It is a decorative concrete document rather than a paver standard, and it is quoted here as that.

The same guide adds that water can stay in concrete after a wash while the surface appears dry, one reason the documents count hours rather than trust a look; the mechanism is set out under why pavers can look dry and still be too wet to seal. What the finished surface looks like when a dry-surface sealer goes on anyway is covered under what happens if sealer goes on wet pavers.

A label that allows damp pavers does not allow puddles. Seal 'n Lock's guide draws the line itself: Super-Wet-Look “cannot be applied to pavers in standing water, as the sealer will not cure and stabilize joint sand.”

Low spots and joints are where rinse water tends to linger, so meeting a damp-rated label still means checking the whole surface for standing water, not only the open middle of the drive.

For every other sealer the wait is the general one, the dry time between cleaning and sealing that the paver cleaning page sets out where it explains why sealed pavers turn white. A shower during that wait is a separate question, answered under whether rain restarts the clock before sealing.