Marysville spreads across flat ground north of Everett, out toward Tulalip. The lots are bigger than the city lots to the south, and the ground is slow to drain. Water does not run off a slope because there often is not a slope. Flat clay will not forgive a dead-level patio. We build fall into the surface and a drain at the low side if the yard cannot take the sheet flow.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98270 · 2020 population 70,714
Get the water off a flat yard
The base comes out of the clay and goes back as compacted rock. Furniture pads and a fire pit get planned so you are not setting a chair in the one low corner. Step-downs, if the house sits high, are stone or paver, not a loose timber that rots in the wet.
We keep a little room between the patio and the fence so you can maintain the edge. A field poured or paved hard against a wood fence is a rotten board in a few years.
The ground in Marysville
Flat ground sounds easy until a winter storm sits on it. French drains and permeable surfaces matter here more than tall walls. Yards are family yards: room for a lawn, a play set, fruit trees that people already have and want kept, and a patio that can take a barbecue without turning into a pond.
The soil is the kind that grows a decent lawn if it can breathe, and moss if it cannot. We mow, aerate, and seed the open lawns, and we bark the beds so the weed cycle slows down. Drainage is the job we would rather do first. A new sod lawn laid over undrained flat clay is a replacement lawn in two years. Fruit trees get pruned for light and for the fruit, not sheared into balls.
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
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.
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.
Furniture first
We size the floor to the table you own, the grill lid that has to open, and the walk around them. A large empty patio with the table in a puddle is a bad large patio. Bring the measurements.
More from this crew
- Patio installation across Snohomish County
- Paver installation in Marysville
- Hardscaping in Marysville
- Retaining walls in Marysville
- Landscape design in Marysville
- Patio installation in Everett
- Patio installation in Arlington
- Patio installation in Lake Stevens
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.
