Lynnwood is built tight: retail around Alderwood, houses on smaller lots, and soils that were compacted when the neighborhood went in. Rain runs off roofs, walks, and the mall-side pavement faster than the yard can take it. Small yards become one surface. That surface has to be the drainage plan, not a lid on top of the drainage problem.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98036 · 2020 population 38,141
The backyard that is mostly patio
We check the side-yard escape route for water before we pave the basin shut. Permeable pavers or a drain across the low end are often the right call. A solid slab from fence to house, dead level, is how basement windows get a pond.
The work is fussy because every inch is in the way of a door, a hose bib, or a gate. We measure those. A patio that blocks the gate you use for the cans is a failed design even if the pavers are straight.
The ground in Lynnwood
Residential yards here are often a rectangle of tired turf, a fence, and a patio slab that has settled toward the house. The soil underneath is dense. Water sits, moss follows, and a new plant put into that ground without loosening it just stalls.
We aerate and dethatch before we promise a greener lawn, and we look at the downspouts before we sell a flower bed. Pavers and gravel show up on the small patios and the side yards where people actually walk. There is also commercial work along the retail streets — pruning, pressure washing, and beds that have to look kept without a full-time gardener. Native, lower-water plantings make more sense than a hedge that needs shearing every three weeks next to a busy road.
How we do the work
A patio here is a roof at ground level. It has to shed water, it has to sit on rock instead of clay, and it has to meet the door without holding a puddle at the threshold. We build in pavers most of the time because a paver field can be lifted and reset. A cracked slab is a demolition.
We talk about furniture, the grill, and the way you actually walk out before we draw a rectangle that looks big on paper and tips water at the house.
What we look at first
- The door threshold and which way the yard falls
- Downspouts landing in the patio area
- How many people, and whether there is a fire pit or a cover
- Access for excavation
Fire pits
Set in a place the smoke can leave and the embers are not in the bark. The pit sits on the same honest base as the patio, not on four pavers in the dirt. Clearance to the house and to branches is part of the layout, not a surprise after the first fire.
At the door
The patio meets the threshold with a step that makes sense and a surface that falls away. We do not bury the siding or the weep screed to make the patio feel flush. That is a rot detail, and we will argue with you about it.
What it costs more to ignore
Drainage and the base. They are the unphotogenic half of the invoice. Cutting them is how a patio gets rebuilt. We would rather build a smaller floor on a real base than a big one on clay.
More from this crew
- Patio installation across Snohomish County
- Paver installation in Lynnwood
- Hardscaping in Lynnwood
- Retaining walls in Lynnwood
- Landscape design in Lynnwood
- Patio installation in Edmonds
- Patio installation in Brier
- Patio installation in Mountlake Terrace
Sources for the climate and the water
- USDA plant hardiness map for choosing plants that can take a Snohomish County winter.
- EPA WaterSense on watering less once a lawn or a new planting is established.
- EPA Soak Up the Rain on keeping roof and yard water from becoming someone else’s problem.
