Will sealing fix loose pavers?

Loose pavers come in two patterns, and Tech Spec 6 names a different distress for each.

At the edge: Tech Spec 6 says edge strips and curbing are restraints that give pavers lateral support, and that loss of lateral restraint shows as widening joints at the outer pavement edge or where two pavement types meet, with the perimeter pavers rotating and settling. It puts the distress at its most notable within 1 to 2 feet of the pavement edge.

In the field: Tech Spec 6 calls it faulting when adjacent pavers differ in elevation or have rotated, and names surficial settlement of the bedding sand, poor installation, or pumping of the joint or bedding sand as causes. Joint sand is, in the guide's words, “an essential component of interlock and pavement stiffness,” and ICPI's glossary defines interlock as the compressive and frictional forces between units that keep them from rotating or moving in relation to each other.

ICPI's glossary defines a sealer, and the definition says nothing about holding a paver in place against its neighbors.

In ICPI's glossary a sealer is a material usually applied as a liquid to reduce absorption, enhance color and, in some cases, reduce abrasion. Because a liquid sealer penetrates the joint sand to some extent while it is applied, ICPI says it secondarily provides some stabilization and can help keep that sand in place when water runs across the surface fast. ICPI also says stabilizers do not add to the structural (load bearing) capacity of the pavement and are not a substitute for recommended installation practices. Neither Tech Spec 5 nor Tech Spec 6 says a sealer resets a paver or restores interlock lost to a moved base.

What that secondary effect does for joint sand is its own question under does sealing help pavers hold their joint sand, and why the sand left is answered under why is the sand washing out of my paver joints. A low spot is a different failure from a rocking paver, covered under will sealing fix sunken pavers.

Faulting has a described fix, and it is work on the pavement itself, not a product applied on top.

Tech Spec 6 says faulting may be corrected by resetting the blocks, but that it may also come from base movement, and in that case the repair is to repair the base, replace the bedding, reinstate the pavers, compact, refill joint sand and compact. That sequence belongs to a paver installation contractor: the guide recommends CMHA certified concrete paver installers for restoration of concrete paver installations, and says an experienced paver installation contractor can give guidance on each reinstatement project.

The same line between cleaning and repair is drawn under what an exterior cleaner is not, and the paver cleaning page states it for pavers under what a paver cleaning removes.

Tech Spec 6 sorts pavement distresses into two groups, and the group points to the kind of fix that follows.

Aesthetic distresses, in the guide's words, “typically do not affect the structural performance of the interlocking concrete pavement system,” and efflorescence is one of them. Loss of lateral restraint and faulting are listed with the structural distresses, each with a repair to the pavement, and the same guide says loose or inadequate edge restraints will cause pavers to move apart. Growth in the joints is a separate question, answered under why is the sand in my paver joints green.

The layer under the pavers is defined at paver base, pavers laid on a bed of sand at sand set, and the class of products that bind joint sand at joint stabilization.