These three come up in almost every consultation, usually from someone who has seen a bad example somewhere and reasonably wants to know whether it is inherent to the material. Mostly it is not. But the honest answers have conditions attached, and the conditions are the useful part.
Are concrete pavers hot?
Short answer: it depends almost entirely on colour, and barely at all on the fact that they are concrete.
Surface temperature in direct sun is driven by how much light a surface absorbs. A dark charcoal absorbs most of it. A light grey, tan or buff reflects considerably more. The difference between a dark and a light unit of the same material is far larger than the difference between two materials of the same colour.
This is why the question is really a specification question rather than a material question, and why it has to be answered before the order goes in, colour is one of the two decisions on a paver project that cannot be changed afterwards without lifting the field.
Concrete pavers do have a small structural advantage over a poured slab here: the joints break up the continuous thermal mass, so a paver surface tends to run slightly cooler than a slab of the same colour. It is a real effect and it is not large enough to rescue a dark deck.
Where the honest answer favours something else: travertine genuinely runs cooler, because it is naturally light and porous. If you are specifying a pool deck in Woodland Hills or Encino, where Valley summer heat is a different proposition from the coast, and barefoot comfort is your first priority. That is a real advantage and we will say so. For most people a light-coloured concrete paver gets most of the way there at a fraction of the cost.
What to do: weight your colour choice lighter than you think you want, especially inland. Look at samples outdoors in afternoon sun rather than under showroom lighting, and put your hand on them. Pattern makes essentially no difference to temperature; colour makes all of it.
Are concrete pavers slippery?
Short answer: not inherently, but two choices can make them so, and both are avoidable.
The first is surface texture. Tumbled and textured units give good wet grip. Very smooth, highly finished units look superb dry and are noticeably less grippy wet. For a patio that mostly matters during rain. For a pool deck, where people arrive on the surface soaking wet by design, it matters constantly.
The second is the sealer, and this is where people get caught out, because the problem is introduced after a perfectly good paver has been chosen. High-gloss, wet-look sealers deepen colour beautifully and can reduce wet traction. If you want that finish on a surface that gets wet, ask specifically for a sealer with a slip-resistant additive. They exist, they work, and the cost difference is trivial against relaying a deck.
A related detail people miss: the coping units at the edge of a pool are where somebody plants a wet foot climbing out. That is the highest-consequence spot on the whole surface and it is worth specifying a textured, rounded or bullnose edge there regardless of what the field is.
What to do: choose textured over smooth for anything that gets wet, and have any sealer tested on a small area out of the main sightline, then wetted, before it goes on the whole surface. Ten minutes of that settles the question permanently.
Do weeds grow between concrete pavers?
Short answer: only once the joint sand has depleted, and this is a maintenance question, not a paver question.
This one is worth understanding mechanically, because the common assumption is wrong. Weeds between pavers are almost never growing up from the soil beneath. A properly built paver surface sits on several inches of compacted aggregate base, which is a genuinely hostile environment for a root system. What actually happens is that seed blows in from above and lands in the joint.
For that seed to germinate it needs somewhere to sit. On a surface with full joints there is nowhere, the sand is packed to near the top of the paver chamfer and, if polymeric sand was used, it has hardened. On a surface where joint sand has washed down over the years. There is a small sheltered recess at every joint intersection that collects debris, holds moisture and functions as a seed tray.
So weeds are a symptom, and the thing they are a symptom of is depleted joints. That matters beyond the weeds themselves: joint sand is structural, transferring load between units, so a surface with empty joints is also a surface where every paver is working alone.
Depletion is faster in some places than others. Coastal properties in Santa Monica, Oxnard and Ventura lose sand faster because the marine layer keeps joints damp and they never fully dry between wettings. Surfaces that get pressure-washed aggressively lose it fastest of all, a pressure washer at close range will strip joint sand out in a single afternoon, and we have been called out to surfaces that were fine until someone cleaned them thoroughly.
What to do: re-sand and reseal on a sensible cycle rather than waiting for growth to appear. Keep the pressure washer at a distance and at moderate pressure. And if you are already seeing growth. That is the signal to re-sand, not to reach for weedkiller, which treats the symptom and leaves the joints just as empty.
The thread running through all three
Two of these are decided at specification and cannot be changed later without lifting the surface: colour, which decides heat, and texture, which decides grip. The third is decided by maintenance and can be corrected at any point.
That is worth knowing when you are being walked through samples, because the questions that feel most casual in that conversation, which colour, which finish, are the ones you are stuck with. The one that sounds most like a long-term commitment, keeping the joints topped up, is the one you can fix whenever you like.
More detail: the concrete paver technical reference, how concrete pavers compare with brick, travertine and stone, and pool deck specifics.