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. City pavers fail at the foundation and at the edge against the walk. There is no extra room to hide a bad fall.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98036 · 2020 population 38,141
Small patios, correct pitch, no river of runoff
We excavate by hand if we have to, and we still build the base deep enough for clay and fill. The pitch is checked with a level, not by eye, because an eighth the wrong way ends up in the crawlspace.
Permeable pavers are worth it where a solid pad would dump more water into a yard that already floods. They are not a no-maintenance surface, and they still need a rock base that can hold the water they let through. We explain that before you choose them to skip a drain.
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
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 Lynnwood
- Hardscaping in Lynnwood
- Gravel installation in Lynnwood
- Pressure washing in Lynnwood
- Paver installation in Edmonds
- Paver installation in Brier
- Paver 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.
