A few years ago, I hired a contractor to rebuild 2 sides of my basement wall. Some of that work involved use of pea gravel that was dumped down to perimeter drainage (at the bottom of one of the new walls). That side is part of my driveway and has a doorway into the house that I’d like to build a small floating porch for. Thing is, I’m not sure how best to install the porch posts because the basement wall work means that the base I have to work with is about 7′ worth of pea gravel. So, there’s no solid soil to put the posts into.

One idea I had was to get a few pavers and put the pavers, say, 6″ or so down into the pea gravel and then place deck blocks on top of those. Then cover everything with whatever pea gravel I need to conceal and stabilize it as much as possible. I figure the pavers, combined with the deck blocks, should give the posts and overall porch enough stability to be usable. What are your guys’ thoughts on this? This will be an area with lots of foot traffic, so stability is the biggest concern as we all understand that pea gravel means loose base and can contribute to movement, skewing or things gradually becoming out-of-plumb, etc. unless it’s somehow stabilized. With the pavers, the idea is that the downward forces would be spread out enough to prohibit sinkage, and the post blocks would then give me a base to attach to. Should I maybe pour concrete on top of the pavers with the deck blocks in that to secure both into 1 singular and attachable base?