I put in a paver patio several years ago, and I’ve had a high spot come up due to freeze/thaw and clay soil.  The high spot (more of a 6’ line) will trap water next to the house. It’s got 8” of compacted base, and 1” of sand that was compacted after the pavers were laid, all according to the directions.

I used polymeric sand between the pavers, which was also compacted to work it down between them.

Can I just remove the pavers in the area I want to fix, scrape out about 1/4 to 3/8” of the compacted sand, relay the pavers, and spread on some new polymeric sand? Or will I need to rent a compactor again?

Thanks!

You need to compact the base.

The base is compacted. 8” thick, compacted every 2”.

Not any longer, it's heaved.

re do your base. go deeper. go 20". you can dig down into the clay and expand the base past the patio a foot to help get any water out of the base too. use 4" dirt, use 8"-9" 1"-1-1/4" crushed rock/stone. then 7-8" process. then 1/2" sand. compact every 4".  the large rock lays at a high compaction rate naturally, but pack it into the dirt under it. you can achieve better compaction if you gently wet/sprinkle the area. hydraulic compaction. use a real compactor.

that base sounds nuts, but the base is what your patio will be.

next is pitch. you want the water to roll off and away from the patio. you dont want water to enter from lawn onto the patio. so regrading my be needed. if I put my dogs ball on the patio, it rolls..I forget the pitch we did.

for the base, thats how mine is, no clay though. I could be wrong on thickness's, but those seem right what I did on mine. my contractor buddy helped. I know it's almost 2' thick.  winters and patios suck. mine has been good for 4-5 years. one spot settled 1/4" but thats the sand. it's only 4-8 pavers.
im not a landscaper.

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You asked if you need to rent a compactor.  You seem to already know you need to compact it.

Aye, carumba. Sounds like it’s gonna be a tear out and redo. If that’s what it takes, so be it. Thanks for the help!

I freaking hate clay soil with a passion. First house I’ve owned with it.

Also, this area is bordered by the house and a curved sidewalk. Two walls off the house at 90 degrees, and the sidewalk curving as the hypotenuse to connect the ends. So can’t really go out past the patio to compact the base.

You need to fix the drainage or it will just heave again.

In a case like OP, how difficult is getting the pavers out with that hardened poly sand?
Can the pavers be reused?

Use a pressure washer with a turbo nozzle to blow the poly sand out.  Can absolutely reuse the pavers.

Thanks. I just put one in last month and wondered how hard it would be to take out.

Absolute worst case scenario, you sacrifice one and bust it up, pull up the rest  to fix the issue in a scenario like the OPs where the problem is localized in the center of the pavers.

I had 10 year old travertine pavers pushed up by tree roots.  I pulled the pavers, cut the roots (which were all on the surface of the sand, between the sand and the pavers) with a sawzall, smoothed out the sand base and re-laid the pavers flat.  I pulled and leveled about two dozen 16" x 24" pavers total.

About 6 months later and all is still well.