Snohomish is the old river town. Downtown sits above the Snohomish River, the houses have mature trees, and a lot of the gardens were planted decades ago and then left to get big. The ground near the river stays wet. The hills just south of it do not. A patio in the part of the yard that floods will heave, stain, and pump silt into the joints. We build above that line.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98290 · 2020 population 10,091
Pavers on the bench only
On the firm ground, the install is a normal deep base with extra care that the outlet of the surface water is not the neighbor’s low window. River soils can be silty. We keep them out of the base rock with a separation layer when we have to.
We do not set pavers as a “high water deck” down in the flood path. That is a different structure, and it is not a paver patio.
The ground in Snohomish
Historic lots come with plants nobody planned: a cedar too close to the porch, a lilac that has swallowed the walk, beds that were neat in 1998 and are roots and bindweed now. Pruning and a hard cleanup are often the whole first phase. Bark, used with a little restraint, puts a finished line back on a Victorian front without covering the problem.
Closer to the river, drains matter. Riparian edges want native plants that can take wet soil, not a sod lawn rolled to the bank. We do not haul fill into the floodplain to “raise the yard” without understanding where that water will go next. Uphill, in the newer pockets, the work looks more like the rest of the county: lawns, small patios, and moss.
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
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.
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.
More from this crew
- Paver installation across Snohomish County
- Patio installation in Snohomish
- Hardscaping in Snohomish
- Gravel installation in Snohomish
- Pressure washing in Snohomish
- Paver installation in Monroe
- Paver installation in Everett
- Paver 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.
