Darrington sits up against the Cascades, with Whitehorse Mountain on the skyline and a harder rain than the towns down on the flats. Soils run rocky, lots break off into steep cuts, and water does not sheet across a lawn so much as it cuts a track and takes the soil with it. On a slope, pavers without a wall or a serious edge become a staircase that is slowly walking downhill.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98241 · 2020 population 1,358
A patio on a bench, a path that stays put
We build the flat. If that means a low wall first, the wall is part of the paver job, not an extra we mention later. The base is compacted rock, and the low side is restrained like it matters, because it is the side the whole field leans on.
Drives and paths in the foothills take water from above. We intercept that water so it is not running across the pavers every storm and pulling the joint sand to the bottom of the hill.
The ground in Darrington
This is a small town with mountain weather. A wall that would be decorative in Mill Creek is structural here: it is holding a bank that wants to move every winter. We see shallow, rocky ground, overhanging fir and hemlock, and driveways that wash out where the grade dumps onto the road.
Planting lists shrink to what can handle cold, wet, and poor soil. Huckleberry and mountain hemlock already grow on the edges of these properties. A lawn is possible on the flatter bench of a lot, but it needs seed and soil that can take a short season, not a turf schedule copied from Everett. Cleanup is often about limbs over the roof and ditches that have filled with gravel from the bank above.
How we do the work
The paver is the skin. The base is the job: excavated, built up in compacted rock, deep enough that this climate will not heave it into waves. We pitch the surface away from the house, we restrain the edges so the field cannot spread, and we sand the joints.
A paver patio set on a couple of inches of loose gravel over clay will look perfect in September and rock underfoot by March. We do not build that, even if the other bid did.
What we look at first
- How the water leaves the surface today
- Clay, fill, or roots under the area
- Edge restraint and where the field ends
- Whether the project is a walk, a patio, or a drive, because the base changes
Joint sand
Swept and settled, then checked. Polymeric sand has a place where ants and heavy rain empty the joints, and it has a failure mode if it is installed wet or left on the face. We use it when it helps, and we wash the haze off before we leave.
Edges
Plastic or metal restraint, spiked into the compacted base, then buried so you see paver, not a black strip. An edge against soil with no restraint is the row that opens up.
The base depth
Deeper for a drive than for a walk, and deeper on clay than the brochure drawn for a dry state. We compact in lifts. A single dumped pile of gravel, raked once, is not a base. You should not see waves after the first winter.
More from this crew
- Paver installation across Snohomish County
- Patio installation in Darrington
- Hardscaping in Darrington
- Gravel installation in Darrington
- Pressure washing in Darrington
- Paver installation in Granite Falls
- Paver installation in Arlington
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.
