"Sand" covers half a dozen different products that behave nothing alike. Using the wrong one is the most common reason a paver patio ends up wavy or a lawn leveling job makes things worse. Here is what each type actually is, and what to use where.
Concrete sand — sometimes sold as washed concrete sand or bedding sand — is coarse and angular, washed clean of silt. The grains lock against each other and water moves through it freely. This is the workhorse.
Masonry sand is finer and softer, screened smaller than concrete sand. It is made for mixing mortar, where you want a smooth, workable paste. That softness is why it feels nicer in your hand, and why it is wrong for anything bearing weight.
Fill sand is unwashed and inconsistent, with silt and fines still in it. Cheap, and fine for backfilling a trench or raising a low area where nothing structural is going on top.
Play sand is fine, rounded, washed, and screened for safety. It is a bagged product, sold at hardware stores. Polymeric sand is a different thing again: a bagged jointing product with binders in it, which goes between pavers after they are set, never underneath them.
Use coarse concrete or bedding sand, one inch, screeded level and not compacted before you set the stone.
The bedding sand is not the base. Under it you need 4 to 6 inches of compacted road base — that is what carries the load. The sand is a thin setting layer that lets you level each paver.
The classic failure here is using masonry sand because it screeds so nicely. It is too fine, it holds water, and under traffic it migrates out from under the pavers. A year later you have dips and rocking stones. Coarse sand is harder to work with and it stays put. Joints get polymeric sand after the pavers are down — do not substitute bedding sand for it or the joints wash out.
This is the one case where the finer sand is right. Use masonry sand, about two inches, over level compacted ground.
A pool liner sits directly on this, and anything coarse or angular is a puncture risk. You want the smoothest, softest material you can get under there. Level matters more than depth — a pool that is two inches out of level across its width puts uneven pressure on the wall, and that is how they fail. Get the ground itself level and compacted first; the sand is a cushion, not a leveling tool.
Do not use sand as the base. Use road base.
This one comes up constantly and the answer surprises people. Sand does not compact into a load-bearing surface — it shifts. A shed sitting on sand settles unevenly, the door stops closing right, and the floor racks over a couple of seasons. What you want is 4 inches of compacted 3/4 minus road base, level and firm. If you are setting the shed on blocks or a skid frame, those bear on the base directly.
Neither, mostly. Deck footings need to bear on undisturbed compacted soil or concrete, below frost depth. Sand under a footing is a settling problem waiting to happen.
Where material does help is under a floating deck or ground-level platform on pier blocks: a few inches of compacted road base under each block spreads the load and keeps the block from sinking. Gravel under the whole deck area — washed rock, a couple of inches — controls weeds and keeps moisture off the underside of the framing.
Sand alone is usually the wrong choice here, especially in this area. Pure sand spread over clay soil creates a layer that water sits on top of rather than moving through. You get a perched water table right at the root zone, and the lawn ends up worse than before.
For low spots, use a sand-compost blend or straight compost, applied in half-inch lifts. Grass grows up through a thin layer; it dies under a thick one. Filling a two-inch depression all at once kills the turf and leaves you reseeding. If you are topdressing to smooth a whole lawn rather than fill specific dips, compost does more than sand does.
Concrete sand or bedding sand. Coarse, drains freely, and packs firmly around a pipe without leaving voids. This is what it is made for. Check any local requirement before you backfill a line you will need inspected.
Worth setting expectations: most gravel pits in northern Utah stock construction-grade sand — bedding sand, masonry sand, washed concrete sand. Play sand is generally a bagged hardware store product, not something that comes on a truck. If you need a small quantity of true play sand for a sandbox, buy bags. Bulk sand from a pit is a different product for a different purpose.
Coarse and angular for anything structural. Fine and soft only where something delicate sits on it, like a pool liner. And under a shed or a paver base, what you actually want is not sand at all — it is compacted road base, with sand only as a thin setting layer on top.
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