Paver Patios, Walls
and Steps That Hold
Ace of Decks designs and installs Techo-Bloc paver patios, retaining walls, steps and walkways across Chicago’s western suburbs. We are a Techo-Bloc Certified Installer, and every layout is resolved in 3D before the first pallet arrives. Hardscape is not landscaping. It is structure, and in Illinois it either accounts for frost or it moves.
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What makes an Ace of Decks hardscape different?
Most paver work is sold by the square foot and installed by whoever is available that week. We design hardscape the way we design a deck: laid out in 3D against your actual grade, with elevations, borders and sightlines decided on screen, then built on a base engineered for Illinois freeze-thaw. The paver you choose is the last decision, not the first.
Techo-Bloc Paver Patios
Full paver patios, walkways and landings in Techo-Bloc systems, with borders, banding and cut detail planned in the design rather than improvised on site.
Retaining Walls & Steps
Segmental retaining walls, seat walls, pillars and outdoor steps that take a sloped lot and turn it into usable, level ground.
Deck-to-Patio Transitions
Elevation changes, borders and sightlines planned together with the deck so the two surfaces read as one continuous outdoor floor.
- Techo-Bloc · Certified Installer
- Fortress Evolution · Preferred Partner
The base matters more than the paver.
Almost every failed patio in the western suburbs failed underneath. The surface is what people shop for and the base is what decides whether it is still flat in ten years.
- Compacted aggregate base, built in lifts. Depth is set by the soil and the use, and it is compacted in stages rather than dumped and rolled once.
- Twenty to forty freeze-thaw cycles a year. Anything that traps water under the surface will heave, and it will heave unevenly.
- Drainage designed in, not hoped for. Pitch away from the house, and a plan for where the water actually goes once it leaves the patio.
- Edge restraint on every open edge. Without it the perimeter pavers migrate, the joints open, and the field follows them outward.
- Polymeric jointing sand, installed dry and activated properly. It is the difference between a joint that locks and one that washes out by the second spring.
What does a hardscape project cost in the western suburbs?
Every project is priced from a completed 3D design, so these describe typical investment levels rather than quotes.
Patio and walkways
A defined patio with the walkways and borders that connect it to the house, built on a base sized for Illinois frost.
Patio with walls and steps
Where the lot changes grade. Retaining and seat walls, steps sized to be walked, pillars and lighting built in while the wall is open.
Estate hardscape
Multiple elevations, pool surrounds and large paver fields in premium materials, engineered as one composition.
Hardscape with a deck
Deck plus patio, walkways, transitions and borders designed as one composition.
Flagship outdoor environments
Projects where hardscape anchors the cover, screens, kitchen and lighting.
Design & planning retainer: $3,000, with $1,500 applied toward your build when you proceed. All design concepts, 3D renderings, layouts and specifications remain the exclusive property of Ace of Decks until a construction agreement is signed.
The base is not where we save you money.
Hardscape is the easiest trade in this business to underbid, because most of the cost is buried before anyone sees a paver. Thinner base, fewer lifts, skip the edge restraint, and the patio looks identical on handover day.
It looks different in year three. That is the difference you are actually comparing when one number comes in lower, and it is not a difference you can inspect from the surface.
We will happily reduce scope with you. A smaller patio, a simpler border, a wall in a standard face instead of a premium one. What does not get reduced is what goes underneath it, because that is the part nobody can fix later without lifting everything above it.
A sloped lot is an opportunity, not an obstacle.
Most of the western suburbs sits on ground that moves somewhere. Walls and steps are how a slope becomes usable, and they are engineered work rather than stacked block.
- Height decides the engineering. Above a certain height a retaining wall needs review, and often reinforcement built back into the soil behind it. That threshold varies by municipality, which is why we confirm it per property rather than assume.
- Drainage behind the wall, not just in front. A wall holding wet soil is holding several times the load it was built for. Aggregate backfill and a drain line are structure, not extras.
- Steps sized to be walked, not to fit the drawing. Consistent rise across every tread, generous run, and lighting planned into the wall while it is still being built.
- Seat walls and pillars as one composition. The wall that holds the grade, the wall you sit on and the pillar carrying a light are usually the same material decision, made once.
What a paver surface asks of you.
Very little, and less than most people expect, but it is not nothing and we would rather say so before you own it.
- Joint sand tops up, occasionally. Polymeric sand locks the field together. Over years, some washes out at edges and steps, and it is refilled rather than replaced.
- Efflorescence is normal and temporary. A white haze can surface in the first season as the pavers cure. It weathers off, and it is not a defect.
- Sealing is optional. It deepens colour and makes spills easier to lift, and it is a maintenance commitment once started. We will give you a straight answer for your material rather than selling it by default.
- Snow removal is fine. Plastic edge on the shovel, and avoid rock salt on newer installs. A calcium-based product is the safer choice.
- Any single paver can be lifted and reset. That is the structural argument for a paver field over a poured slab, and it is also the maintenance one.
Where we build
We design and install hardscape across Chicago’s western suburbs, including Hinsdale, Oak Brook, Naperville, St. Charles, Burr Ridge, Geneva, Wheaton and Downers Grove, serving DuPage, Kane and Will County from our home base in Aurora, Illinois.
Hardscape questions, answered directly
Can you build a patio without a deck?
Yes. Plenty of our hardscape work is standalone, particularly on walk-out lots where a patio at grade makes more sense than a raised structure. The design process is the same: 3D first, fixed price from the completed design.
Pavers or poured concrete?
Pavers, for this climate. A poured slab is a single rigid surface that cracks when the ground moves, and northern Illinois ground moves every winter. A paver field flexes at the joints instead, and an individual paver can be lifted and reset if anything ever needs attention.
How deep does the base need to be?
It depends on the soil and what the surface carries, which is why we test rather than assume. What does not change is the method: compacted aggregate built in lifts, drainage planned, and edge restraint on every open edge.
Do you handle permits for hardscape?
Where a permit is required we handle it, along with inspections, as part of the fixed price. Requirements vary by municipality, and retaining walls above a certain height almost always need review. See the permit guide for how this works across DuPage, Kane and Will County.
Start with a conversation,
not a quote form
A free 15-minute discovery call. No pressure, just a conversation about what you’re picturing and whether we’d be a good fit.
Book a Discovery CallAce of Decks · Aurora, IL · (630) 354-8887
