Why this trade needs vetting more than most
A paver seal looks finished the moment it is applied. Every job looks good on the day, including the bad ones, because fresh sealer on a clean surface is a dramatic improvement whatever went wrong underneath it.
The mistakes surface at eight months to two years: a milky haze, a tacky finish in the afternoon heat, a coat peeling at the edges, joints that emptied out over one wet season. By then the low bidder has frequently changed their phone number, and the next company’s quote is higher because the failed coat has to come off before anything else can happen.
That gap between when you pay and when you find out is the whole reason vetting matters here.
The checks that take ten minutes
Confirm the business is real. Look the company up on Florida’s Division of Corporations, Sunbiz. An active Florida entity, registered at a plausible address, with the name on the quote matching the name on the record. A company that will not give you a legal entity name is telling you something.
Check licensing status. Florida licenses many trades through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, and the lookup is public and free. Use it on any contractor you are considering, including us. Requirements vary by the work and by the county, so the useful question is not “are you licensed” — everyone says yes — but “licensed as what, and under what number”, which you can then verify in under a minute.
Ask for the insurance certificate, from the insurer. Not a photograph of a certificate. A current certificate sent by the agency, naming you or your property as certificate holder, is normal to request and trivial for a legitimate company to provide. Sealing involves chemicals worked next to pool water, screen cages, landscaping and a painted house.
Read the reviews for specifics. Volume tells you less than detail. Reviews that name what was done, and reviews from more than a year ago describing how the work held up, are worth far more than a wall of five-star ratings from one month.
The questions that actually separate people
Anyone can pass the paperwork check. These are the ones that reveal whether they know the trade.
- “Is the surface washed and then allowed to dry, or sealed the same day?” In this humidity a washed paver needs 24 to 48 hours to dry through. A same-day wash-and-seal in summer is the commonest cause of a clouded finish. The sequence is in what clean, sand and seal means.
- “Is re-sanding included, polymeric or regular, and what color?” A wash strips joint sand out, so it has to go back. If re-sanding is a separate line item, the headline price is sealing over empty joints. Detail in what joint sand does.
- “Water-based or solvent-based, and why that one here?” The reasoning matters more than the answer — see water-based versus solvent-based.
- “What was on this surface before?” If nobody asks you this, nobody is thinking about whether the new coat will bond to the old one.
- “Can I see the finish on my own pavers before you do the whole thing?” A test patch is cheap, and the difference between finishes is far bigger in person than in a photograph.
- “What happens if a section has settled?” The right answer is that it gets reset before anything is sealed. Sealing over movement locks the problem in.
- “What does the surface need in three years, and what will that cost?” A company planning to be here will answer. Recoat and full strip are very different numbers.
Quote red flags
- A price given over the phone without seeing the surface. Condition, square footage, stains and the previous coating all change the job.
- A number far below everyone else. In this trade the saved money is almost always the drying time and the sand.
- Pressure to decide today, a discount that expires, or a crew that happens to be in the neighborhood with material left over.
- A deposit demanded in cash, or a large deposit for a job that is mostly labor.
- No written scope. The quote should name the steps, the sand type, the product, the number of coats and the cure time. Three words and a price is not a scope.
- Sealing pitched as a cure for a surface problem. If it holds water, rocks, or has a failed coat on it, sealing is not the fix — see failed sealer or efflorescence and why pavers sink.
What a good one looks like on site
They walk the whole surface before quoting, and they point at things. They name the stains rather than calling everything dirt. They tell you which parts of your wish list are not worth the money. They put the drying window in writing and they schedule around it instead of around their own convenience. And they give you a straight answer about what happens when it needs doing again, because they expect to be the ones doing it.
If you are collecting quotes in Bonita Springs, Naples, Estero or Cape Coral, take this list with you and ask the same questions of everyone, us included. The answers will not all sound the same, and the differences are the information you are looking for. What we include is set out on our clean, re-sand and seal page, and who we are covers the rest.