Hardscape: patios, walkways, walls and fire pits

We strip the topsoil and any old fill down to firm subgrade, then build back up with 3/4" clean crushed base, 8" to 16" deep depending on the soil and the application, compacted in lifts. Lifts run about four inches and every one gets compacted with a plate compactor or a reversible plate, wetted down when the rock is dry enough that it will not knit together. A walking patio on gravelly ground sits at the shallow end of that range; a driveway apron on clay sits at the deep end. Kent M.'s driveway job got the deep end and extra compaction, and the pavers have not sagged. On soft or wet subgrade we add geotextile fabric so the base rock does not pump down into the mud.

On top of the compacted base goes a thin screeded bedding course — about an inch, no more, because a thick sand bed is what makes a patio roll and dip later. Pavers get laid off a string line and checked as the field goes out. Field cuts are made on a wet saw, not banged off with a hammer, and cut pieces smaller than about a third of a paver get avoided by adjusting the layout instead. Once the field is down we run polymeric sand into the joints, compact the whole surface with a plate and a protective pad, and re-sand what settles.

Pavers spread sideways if nothing holds the perimeter. The standard cheap answer is plastic edging spiked into the base. We do not use it. Every paver edge we build gets a poured concrete curb — a haunch of concrete formed against the outside course, below finished grade so you never see it. It costs more on day one and it is the reason the edges are still straight in year eight. Where an edge meets a gravel area, we use a soldier course on top of the concrete so there is a clean line between the two materials.

We build two kinds: segmental block walls and quarried boulder or block walls set with a machine. Both start the same way — 3/4" clean crushed base, 8" to 16" deep depending on the soil and the application, compacted in lifts, and a buried first course, which counts toward the wall height even though nobody sees it. Behind the wall goes clean drainage rock and a perforated drain line daylighted out to somewhere water can go, because a wall that holds back water instead of soil is a wall that comes apart. Backfill goes in and gets compacted in lifts as the wall goes up, and geogrid gets laid into the courses when the height, the slope above, or a surcharge like a driveway calls for it. We will tell you at the site visit if a wall needs an engineer rather than finding out later.

Fire pits get a steel insert ring and a block or stone surround set on the same compacted base as the patio around it. Seat walls get a mortared core and a flat cap so you can actually sit on it without catching your leg on a lip. Grade changes get sandstone slab steps set between boulders, or timber-framed treads filled with fitted flagstone where the run is long. Steps get bedded and shimmed on compacted rock so they do not rock underfoot in spring.

Before anything gets built we look at where water already goes: downspouts, the slope off the house, low spots that stay wet into June. Patios get pitched away from the foundation, usually around a quarter inch per foot. Downspouts get piped out or dropped into a river rock bed instead of dumping onto new pavers. If a yard has a real water problem, the proposal says so, and it says what fixing it costs, before you sign.