Comparisons written for Sarasota's ground, salt and heat

Nine decisions, and the order to make them in

Material comparisons are usually written to sell a material. These are written to be used in sequence, because the answers constrain each other: the flood zone limits what makes sense to build, the pool chemistry limits the stone, and the heat question only matters once the first two are settled.

1. Repair or replace. Six tests on the existing slab decide whether anything else on this list is relevant.
2. Concrete or pavers. Twenty-year cost, flood behaviour and repairability, not appearance.
3. Overlay or rebuild on a deck. Cool deck against pavers on lifespan and carrying cost.
4. Which stone, if stone. Travertine, shellstone and porcelain on heat, slip and salt.
5. Stone or concrete pavers. Where the premium pays and where it does not.
6. Heat. What colour, mass and texture actually do at two in the afternoon.
7. Thickness. Four inches or six, by load rather than by budget.
8. Reinforcement. Rebar, mesh or fiber on this soil.
9. Sealer. Penetrating or film, decided by distance from the water.

Running them out of order is how people end up with a beautiful travertine deck on a base that a surge will empty, or a porcelain lanai on a bedding layer that lets the tiles rock.

What every comparison on this site refuses to do

• Quote a temperature we did not measure. The figures circulating in Florida paver marketing, that travertine runs twenty to thirty degrees cooler than concrete, come from vendor pages with no method and no instrument. They may well be directionally right. They are not a measurement, so they are attributed rather than repeated as fact.
• Declare a winner without a scenario. Every comparison ends in a table of situations, because a driveway east of I-75 and a pool deck on Casey Key have different right answers.
• Hide the maintenance. A material's carrying cost over twenty years is part of its price, and on this coast the sealing interval is set by distance from open water.

The numbers behind all nine comparisons

Each comparison page argues from the same underlying figures. Collecting them here means the arguments can be checked against one table rather than nine.

Two entries in that table are attributed rather than measured, and they are marked as such: cool deck service life and paver service life come from vendor and contractor guidance. Everything else is either a code citation, a published price read on a stated date, or a specification this site applies.