Mountlake Terrace is mid-century houses on city lots, with newer buildings near the transit line. The slopes are gentle, the soils are compacted, and the yards were not designed for the amount of roof water a remodels-worth of downspouts can dump. 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 98043 · 2020 population 21,272
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 Mountlake Terrace
Lots are modest. A patio, a small lawn, a side yard that has become a moss strip, and a fence that is older than the owners. That is the usual visit. The soil has been walked on for sixty years. Aeration and dethatching change the lawn more than a bag of seed thrown on top.
Where the lot tips, it tips a little, and a low wall or a re-graded swale is enough. We are not cutting roads into a mountain. Pavers get people off the mud by the back door, and a pressure wash takes the black film off a walk that has not seen sun all winter. Plantings should stay in scale with the house. A hedgerow that needs a lift every year is the wrong tree for a forty-foot lot.
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
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.
Sealing
Optional. It deepens the color and can help the joints, and it is a maintenance coat every few years, not a structural need. We do not sell a sealer as what keeps the patio from settling. The base does that.
More from this crew
- Paver installation across Snohomish County
- Patio installation in Mountlake Terrace
- Hardscaping in Mountlake Terrace
- Gravel installation in Mountlake Terrace
- Pressure washing in Mountlake Terrace
- Paver installation in Lynnwood
- Paver installation in Edmonds
- Paver installation in Brier
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.
